


The beginning (arc 1)

by Beyondtheswordproject



Series: Beyond the sword. [1]
Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Canon - Manga, Next Generation, Next-Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23796544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beyondtheswordproject/pseuds/Beyondtheswordproject
Summary: They must fight their way through high school and the cram school, though the stress of the paladin rin okumura being missing might make it hard for them especially when a new threat starts to show up.New chapter every two weeks (hopefully)
Relationships: Kamiki Izumo/Shima Renzou, Miwa Konekomaru/Paku Noriko, Moriyama Shiemi/Okumura Yukio, Okumura Rin/Suguro "Bon" Ryuuji
Series: Beyond the sword. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714453
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	1. True cross here we come!

**Author's Note:**

> Don't judge the ships please, I'm using ships that I personally enjoy so if you don't like it they don't read it I guess, but I hope you enjoy my little passion project I've had in my head since 2017.

The exorcist ran through the forest, his boots splashing in puddles of mud as it poured down rain on him. He was soaked and the cat that was resting on his shoulders was hissing at someone behind them whom the exorcist was running away from. His hand was over his shoulder as blood was coming out of a bullet-shaped hole. "Why hasn't it healed...?" He asked to himself through gritted teeth.

The wound burned. "Must have been holy water in that thing..." He muttered again, soon enough his attackers were starting their rain of bullets again, shooting at him. He somewhat managed to dodge a few but it wasn't long before one got his leg, making him fall and hit the muddy ground. 

The cat he was with meowed at him worriedly as they surrounded the two of them. "Kuro...run..." He muttered the cat seemed to hesitate listened, and ran away. the attackers didn't seem to care about it, they only wanted the demon they had just taken down.

XIIX

Police tape surrounded the area but instead of officers, it was exorcists. A small team of six pulled up the tape so they could get through. A blond one crotched down on her knees to pick up a piece of red fabric. "The case for his sword..." A male with brown hair and glasses said as he examined it with her. 

"But where's the sword?" Someone asked but another one soon spotted something. "Over there!" The bald shorter one shouted as he pointed in a direction.  
One with pink hair walked over to where he pointed at and picked up a sword that was covered in mud. "Found it."

"So we found the sword..." The blond one said. "But no rin."

XIIX

-10 months later-

A girl with long black hair with half of her hair parted out of her face with a hair-clip and the other resting her shoulder walked out of the convince store with a plastic bag in her hand and an umbrella in the offer. She opened it up to avoid getting wet by the rain as she stepped out from the doorway and to the side-walk, she went down. As she walked past a store that had T.Vs displayed in the window she saw they were set to the news, the lady was talking about true cross and the missing paladin. Exorcist business usually stayed within their circle but due to the severity of the issue they allowed the news to talk about it to help with the search but it clearly wasn't working. 

She let out a sign after watching it for a minute, she was tired of hearing about it. But she had to hear about it everyday the paladin was her father, after all, she just wanted to see him in real life and not just a picture on the news. 

After a bit of walking, she reached home and from the outside, she could see a figure watching her from inside. She waved to it cause she knew it was her little sister who was probably eager for their dinner. 

When she unlocked and opened the door she was greeted by the bubbly girl. " Emiko!" The younger one said happily, she had long hair as Emiko did but instead, she had it tied back in a ponytail and her bangs were pushed back by a headband.

"Hello, Akemi." She patted her younger sister's head. "Why don't you take this to the kitchen table." She handed the bag to Akemi he happily took it and ran over to the table while giggling. 

She looked over to the living room to see her brother on the couch, a book in his hand. He looked a lot like Emiko did by having the same features she did, they would be identical if he wasn't a boy. He had black hair as she did, it was long as well but it only went to his shoulders while Emiko's when all the way down her back. "Dinner time Kyoko..." She said to him. He looked up at her with his reddish-brown eyes before closing his book. "You get one for dad?" He asked as he sat the book down on the couch before standing up. "Yeah, but he won't be home for a while so I'll just put it the fridge." 

Their other father had been working late every night since everything happened, which wouldn't be good when Emiko and Kyoko leave for school next week but they didn't show their concerns to him, Neither of them wanted to add on to her stress, but it probably wouldn't make any difference the whole branch was stressed. 

"Right..." Kyoko said before going to join their younger sister at the table.  
Emiko frowned, she hated the situation they were in but what could they do about it? They had no real idea of what was happening. 

XIIX

Later that same night their father walked through the door, he looked and was tired from that day's work and the search that was going nowhere. He took off his heavy jacket, letting it fall to the ground, he would pick it up when he leaves in the morning. He ran his fingers through his dark brown hair to get it out of his eyes as he headed for the kitchen. "Dinner then bed..." The man grumbled as he opened the fridge to see a container a food from the store with a sticky note on it with his youngest daughter's messy handwriting 'for dad!' But in much neater writing that could have been either of the twins who wrote it was his 'Ryuji' in Parenthesis to signify which dad they were talking about. Even with rin gone they still did it. He took out the food and placed it in the microwave to heat it up, god he grew to hate the convince store food so quickly but he didn't have time to cook and god knew neither of his kids knew how to. He missed his husband's cooking, he missed him in general, a feeling his teenage self would of yell at him for feeling. But his feelings towards the half-human had definitely changed over the years. 

After dinner, Ryuji walked up the stairs to the second floor, which was just as quiet as the downstairs. It was pretty late so the kids were probably asleep or being quiet to hide the fact they were awake at this hour, but the only night owl in the family, their oldest daughter was still at the school since she just decided to stay during the small break they had while they transitioned into the new school year. 

When he got to the bedroom he used to share with his husband he noticed he forgot to make the bed before he left, it didn't matter he was going straight to bed and straight to work as soon as he woke up anyways.

XIIX

The next week flew by and Kyoko and Emiko were scrambling to get ready to leave for school, finishing packing their bags, putting on uniforms, and making sure Akemi would be fine without the two of them. "You know our phone numbers and dads right?" Asked Emiko, she was practically acting like a worried mother towards her 11-year-old sister.  
"Yes, don't worry about me I'm going to be at school most of the day anyway!" Akemi was right her new school year started today as well so at least she wouldn't be bored all day without her siblings. "Ok then, we'll try to come to visit this weekend ok?" 

Their sister nodded in response, this made Emiko feel some sort of relief but she was still nervous about the day to come. "Okay, Kyoko do you have the key?" She asked, turning her focus to her twin brother who was putting on the jacket of his uniform. "Yeah." He simply answered. "Then I guess we're heading out then," Emiko said as she approached the door and picking up her suitcase and school bag off the ground. "Bye Akemi." 

Akemi waved at them as they left the house with a smile on her face. "BYE!" 

XIIX

After stepping off the bus together they walked through the gates of the school along with the crowd of other students. "This school never fails to amaze me..." Emiko said, looking at the large school in awe but Kyoko didn't have any reaction to it, they've seen it before when visiting their sister here. 

"I guess it's cool..." He muttered to his sister. 

"HEY, YOU TWO!"

the two of them suddenly turned around when they heard a familiar male voice call out to them, it was a shorter male with purple hair that came down to the start of his neck. His name was kai, a very energetic and good guy.  
Next to him was is clearly annoyed younger sister airi, she brown hair that was tied into twin tails that rested on her shoulders. She was She was the opposite of Kai, she was easily annoyed and snarky. 

Kai approached the twins with an excited smile on his face. "I haven't seen you two all break what's up?!" It's true, they hadn't seen anyone from their whole group of friends during the time school was out, but they were busy getting ready to start this chapter in their lives. 

"I can't wait for- airi where are you going?" Kai noticed his younger sister was walking past them, clearly not waiting around for her older brother.  
"Going to the assembly, unlike you three." She answered. 

"Right...they added the junior high this year," Emiko muttered softly. 

"Yeah, cool huh? Anyways we should go to, we'll catch up when we get to the cram school dorms later!" Kai said, quickly moving to follow his sister towards the school. 

The cram school dorms, just a fancy term of they just converted the old boy's dormitory into a dorm for strictly cram school students. It had been like that since their parents were in their third year along time ago, but no one seemed to mind cause they were all friends/family pretty much. 

"Ugh, where are they?" Complained a girl with short brown hair that straight and neat, she was short compared to the other three that were standing next to her on top of the stairs near the entrance of the school. "Oh, they'll be here soon!" A girl with long white hair that was in two braids on her shoulders. "Yeah don't worry about it too much you, we have plenty of time..." The tallest girl who had a lighter shade of brown hair that was in a ponytail reassured her friend.

"There they are!" A girl with dirty blond hair that was neatly put up in a bun with her bangs hanging over her forehead pointed out as they saw the other members of their friend group. 

"Oh hey, guys!" Kai was the first one to greet the girls, Yui, Anzu, Mami, and Rika. three of them were starting their second year today but Mami was starting her final year in junior high. 

"Your late," Yui said as a pouty expression came to her face as she placed her hands on her hips. "The assembly is about to start!" 

"Then let's go." Emiko answered her cousin as they all walked up the stairs.

XIIX 

The assembly and took up most of their first day the rest was left for them to get settled into their dorms, but for the eight of them, they had to attend their first day of cram school. 

They were going to be separated during the class though since the second year's had taken the cram school last year they were going to be indifferent classes then the first years and junior high schoolers. 

"Well, we'll see you guys at the dorm later!" Rika had said to the other half of the group as they went off to their separate class. 

When the younger ones got to their class they saw they got some random older exorcist as their teacher. "Hey Mami, I thought your dad taught the first year cram school students," Kai whispered to the blond girl in front of him. "He usually does but he's taking a break cause of...you know." As she said that last bit she looked over at Emiko and Kyoko with a worried expression. "Oh yeah... I forgot about that..." Kai muttered. 

"Can you all please take your seats?" Their teacher ordered them which made them all hurry up to find a desk to sit down at.

XIIX

Many hours later they were all at their dorms, expect for Mami and airi who couldn't live at the dorms since they were in the junior high program. "God, the class was so long..." Kai said with a groan as he leaned back in the wooden chair he was sitting in as everyone gathered around the kitchen in the dorm for dinner. "And boring..." Rika muttered as she took a bite of her food they had gotten at the school convince store on their way back from the cram school. 

"Oh, it was fine if your gonna be an exorcist you gotta learn that it's not all about adventure." Yui said, practically scolding them for complaining. "At least your older brother and sister won't stop bugging you about your first day..." Anzu muttered as she was in the process Of replying to her older siblings who were already exorcist's in the Kyoto branch. 

"Then I guess I'm glad takezo and maizono aren't my siblings," Kai said with a small feeling of relief. "Oh trust me, I'm so telling them to ask you about your day," Anzu said back with a small giggle. 

"Aw, man..." He muttered. 

"Kinda disappointed to see machi didn't join the cram school..." Emiko suddenly said as she poked at her food. Machi Miwa was another friend of there's but she didn't hang out with them much during the school year, they only really saw her out of school during their summers in Kyoto to visit their families. 

"Yeah I guess, but I'm sure we'll see her around she is attending true cross as well." Yui chimed in. 

"I know..." Emiko said with a small smile on her face.


	2. The neko's kitten.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Machi mwia is having trouble adjusting to her new life as a true cross student while the paladin team is worried about the fate of their friend.

"Where is she...?" A girl with black hair that was tied in a side ponytail asked herself as she tried to look through the crowd of students for her friend, regretting leaving their dorm before here. 

Soon enough she spotted a familiar pink bow poke through the crowd, it was machi. The girl with short fluffy brown hair with a headband that pushed her bangs back that had a cute little pink bow on top of it. 

When she reached her friend, panting from running all the way from her dorm to the school. "Sorry, I got distracted..." 

"From what?" Her friend raised a brow in curiosity, confused but honestly not surprised. 

"I was getting ready but then I couldn't get my bow for my uniform tied so I tried looking up a video but I watched dog videos instead..." She answered back as she pointed at her badly tied bow around her neck.

"Lemme see..." Her friend muttered as she pulled the girl closer. "You should have just asked me."

"I know, I'm sorry Akio," Machi said with a smile as she rubbed the back of her while Akio fixed up her bow. "Thank you Though!"

"Yeah no problem, now come on I gotta get to class and so do you." 

They had walked together to Akio's class but they couldn't stay together for long cause of the bell started to ring so machi had to hurry along to her own class, but on the way there she bumped into someone.

"Hey watch where you're going..." A male voice said, it sounded...familiar, it was cold but soft.

"Oh come on Kyoko..." She heard another voice, a female. Machi turned her head quickly to see them, the suguro twins. They were headed towards the classroom machi had walked Akio to. 

"Kyo-" machi was cut off when the late bell started to ring. "Oh shoot!" She said before practically sprinting to her class.

XIIX

Machi's classes were boring and hard, she knew you had to be smart to be in this school but didn't know you had to be SUPER smart, she was leaning against her locker waiting to go and get lunch with Akio when she spotted a certain someone going to his locker that happened to be a few lockers down from her's. "Oh, h-hey suguro!" She greeted the male with a smile across her face. 

He glanced at her while he pulled out books he would need for his next class. "Uh, hi..." He said in his soft, timid like voice. 

"You know I was kinda disappointed our Kyoto trip was canceled this year cause of your-" she stopped her self when she noticed Kyoko starting to glare at her with those piercing reddish-brown eyes.  
"Right sensitive topic..." She averted her gaze, she felt bad for bringing it up. "There's always next year..." 

"Yeah..." He rolled his eyes as he shut his locker. "See ya..." And like that he left machi, she sighed. She really felt like it idiot right now.

"You ready to go get lunch?" Machi looked over to her right to see Akio standing next to her with a gentle smile. 

"Oh yeah!" The mention of food snapped her out of her guilt, she really had a one-tracked mind. 

They sat out in the courtyard during lunch, machi sitting on the edge of the fountain while she kicked her legs back and forth as she ate her food. 

"So, any clubs you gonna join?" Akio asked, she was sitting on the grass but had her back leaned up against the stone.   
Machi thought for a moment as she stared down at her bento. "No, none of them seem that interesting..." 

"Oh come on machi, you promised you'd join a club once we joined high school," Akio told her, reminding machi of the promise she made during their last year of junior high. Machi wanted to join a club, have fun and make new friends but she felt like she didn't fit in anywhere. 

"I know...maybe I'll join the swim club." Machi moved her gaze to her friend as she softly smiled. Akio scoffed "cause I'll be there...?"

"Yeah..." Machi mumbled. 

XIIX

The black-haired male was sitting alone at his desk looking down at a book when hands suddenly placed on his desk in front of him.  
"Hey, Kyoko!" 

Kyoko's gaze moved up to see Kai standing over his desk with that stupid smile on his face.  
"What do you want?" He asked in a harsh tone. 

"You wanna hang out later?" Kai knew it was a long shot that Kyoko would agree to spend time with him but damnit he was gonna try.  
"No." Those hopes were suddenly shot down by Kyoko's response. 

"Aw come on man..." Kai's smile turned into a pout. "You gotta have fun."

"I was having fun reading this book and when it was quiet." Kyoko knew he was being mean and he did care but he just wasn't in the fun-having mood. 

"Oh, don't let dad being missing stop you from enjoying yourself." Kyoko heard his twin sister suddenly chime in, Kyoko quickly turned his head to face her. "T-that has nothing to do with it, I was like this even before he went missing!"

"You tell yourself that." Emiko gave him a smug smile but all she got from her bother was a glare and a scoff. "Shut up..." He muttered. Emiko had a point though before it all happened Kyoko hung out with his friends a lot more than he did now, but after it did he started to shun himself away and slowly drift away from the group. 

"So is it still a no...?" 

Kyoko turned back to Kai who was still leaning against his desk. "Fine whatever, I'll hang out with you." Kyoko gave him, mainly to get Kai and his sister off his back. 

"Okay cool!" Kai's smile returned as moved his hands off Kyoko desk and started to go to his own desk but on the way he mouthed a 'thank you' to emiko. 

XIIX

"Mom, how do you have fun in high school?" Machi asked her mother through the phone as she laid on her unmade bed.

"Uh well..." She thought for a moment "maybe try making new friends i guess or try new things" she answered.

"Is that you did...?" Machi asked.

noriko let out a small sigh with a slight smile on her face before she answered "yes, i kinda had to cause izumo was off doing her own thing but I'm glad i did do that in the end and it will be the same for with Akio joining clubs so you gotta have the best time you can."

"But how do you have fun on your own?" Machi asked. "Well uh...that's for you to decide." Her mother answered.

"Oh okay! I'm going go try to find something to do then!" Machi in excitement and hung up the phone. "W-well be careful and I love-" Noriko tried to get out before her daughter quickly hung up the phone. Noriko let out a sigh, her daughter was something else. 

XIIX

Machi had spent the whole week trying to find something to do or find some new friends but it was much harder then she thought, none of the clubs interested her and all the other students kinda seemed intimidating everyone was so smart or that snooty type of rich. 

But she was none of those things, she was smart enough to get into the school but she had to cram in months of studying to even past the entrance exam. 

Though luckily a familiar purple haired boy was in her class, she debated on talking to him all week but instead she usually just stared at him and when kai noticed she had been looking at him it made him uneasy. 

It made him beyond nervous as she stared at him and he was quick to get up from his seat when the bell rang but was stopped when machi called out for him. 

"Shima! Hang out with me!" 

Kai stared at her with wide eyes before blinking. "Ok, one you can call me Kai we've known each since we were kids and no I got cram school." 

Machi rose her brown in confusion. "Cram...school?"

"Yeah, to be come an exorcist." Kai had answered. 

"Exorcist? Oh I know what that is!" Of course machi knew what it was, her own father was an exorcist. "Wait you're becoming one?"

"Yeah! All of us are." 

That's right, everyone but her was in the cram school. She always heard them talk about when they were in Kyoto together, everyone is the Myōō Dharani were exorcist's and Kai, her, emiko, and Kyoko born into it so it was only natural they became exorcist's so one day they might work in Kyoto. But machi decided not to, demons were scary and she wasn't good at fighting either. But Kai was, he always trained with his cousins during the summers. 

"Oh, well I hope you do good!" Even if machi felt bad about being the only one not joining she was still gonna cheer them on. 

"Thanks, I'll see you around then!" And with that Kai left her, now what is she gonna do? Kai was the only person she really thought of becoming her friend. 

XIIX

The room was silent except for the sound of a clock ticking and papers shuffling every now and then. The silence was getting on certain pink-haired male nerves, though now his hair wasn't fully pink any more some of his natural brown hair had started to peek through but it was still the same length it had been. He let out a groan that broke the silence as he leaned his head on the table they all sat at. "I'm dying here." He complained. 

"No your not," Izumo said, now instead of her hair being in twin-tails like it had been years ago, it was in one single ponytail. 

"Come on Shima, we're trying to find clues here," Konekomaru said, unlike everyone else he had changed the least though his age was definitely showing, and maybe he grew an inch or two but other than changing his old red glasses for black ones he hadn't changed. 

"What clues? We've looks at the scene and these damn files a thousand times, nothing has changed and we haven't found a damn thing, the only thing we did was the damn sword." Shima explained as he pointed at the sword in the red-clothed case sitting in the corner of the room. 

Shiemi let out a sigh, her hair was much longer now it being in a braid that rested on her shoulder and was decorated with flowers she stuck in the braid every morning. "Shima's right...we haven't been able to find anything else..."

"See, shiemi agrees with me! Maybe you all can take my advice an-"  
"IT'S NOT THE ILLUMINATI!!!" Shima was cut off as the rest of the group yelled at him.

"They've been gone for years, we got rid of them ourselves too." Yukio had said in his firm voice, his hair had only grown out a little bit mainly his bangs being the part that grew but instead of cutting them, he had the part of his bangs the would have covered the eye that wasn't underneath an eye-patch pinned back with. 

"Come on bon, someones gotta agree with me here!" Shima said looking over at Ryuji who was still looking at the file in his hand. Ryuji's hair had grown back to it's length when he had that blond streak in his hair but it was still it's natural color but it was pushed out of his face with gel, though a few strands had fallen out of place throughout the day. 

"Shima you know I don't." Ryuji had said, finally looking away from the paper in his hand towards his friend. "Even if they did he would of broken free by now, he's too strong and stubborn to keep down."

"What if he's dead then...?" Everyone looked at shiemi would had a frightened look on her face, that had been a thought everyone had cause that was a good possibility. 

"Don't worry about it, we all know rin wouldn't let himself get killed, no matter how stupid he is." Yukio said but that didn't put anyone at ease. 

XIIX

"I'm going for a walk!" Machi yelled out as she put on her shoes, after hearing an "okay" from akio she walked out the door, it had just gotten dark outside and students had already gone inside for the night but machi always liked walking around at night, it had become a way for her to destress really. 

"I really have to make some friends...." Machi said to herself, she never had an issue making friends before but since she was in a whole different place with smart and rich people it was a lot harder, but she wasn't gonna stop trying.

Machi smiled "i just have to try- ow" she stopped walking and looked down at her leg "what scratched me...?" She mumbled to herself noticing a scratch that wasn't there before. then she heard a soft growl coming from behind her, she turned around slowly and was met with an animal that looked like it was undead and rotting. Her eyes widen as she took a step back, she had never seen something like this or ever expected to see this while walking around the school, it looked so angry and it was getting ready to jump at her and when it did she let out a scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if it's a little short, I just felt I needed to get this out quickly cause it's been well over two weeks.


	3. What's going on here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Machi decides she'd going to take a leap of faith and join the cram school, she just needs her very concerned parents permission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter, just wanted to make up for the fact that last one took forever so you get a double upload this week.

"Why did I have to come with you?" Kyoko asked as him and kai walked, Kai had dragged him along when he went to the convenience store to pick up some bread. "Cause I didn't want to go alone and you need to get out more" kai answered holding the plastic bag.  
"I could be doing homework..." Kyoko said, being annoyed by his friend.  
"Oh come on I know you finished it already," Kai said to him.

"Well, then I could be doing anything else but this..." Kyoko said looking at the stone ground as he walked.

"HELP!" both of them stopped and Kyoko looked up as the two of them saw a certain brown-haired girl running towards them.  
"What's wrong?!" Kai asked while machi stopped in front of them. "T-that..." Machi pointed to where the demon thing that was chasing after her. "W-what is that thing?" Kyoko asked becoming as scared as machi was of it. "I-i'm not sure but...uh... let's go!" Kai said dropping the bag of bread and grabbing both Kyoko and machi by the wrists and started running.

XIIX

Yui poured water into a small pot of Burro’s Tail. "Drink up little one..." She said to the succulent, smiling softly.

Then with a sound of her door hitting the wall as it was opened quickly she was startled and dropped the cup she used to pour water making what was left of the water spill on her desk "the hell?!" She asked in a panic turning head to look at the three standing in her doorway. "There's a demon chasing after machi can you shoot it for us?" Kai asked.

Yui let out a sigh as she opened her desk drawer and got her gun out "clean up the water, I'll be right back" Yui said as she walked passed them.

"S-she has a gun...?" Machi asked in shock as she watches Yui with a gun in hand walk to the front door of the dormitory and open it to face the demon outside.

"Yeah, cool right?" Kai said looking over at machi.

Yui stepped outside to see the demon that still prowling by the door, she didn't even blink before raising the gun up towards it as it growled and snarled at her before launching at Yui, but she pulled on the trigger and a loud bang was heard as she had shot the demon before it had gotten close to her. 

"There done," Yui said turning back towards the group, Kyoko didn't look all the amused, and Kai was impressed at the fact you didn't hesitate but machi, on the other hand, was in awe. 

"You...shot it...and got rid of it," Machi said Yui raised her brow. "Yes, I did it was pretty easy so easy in fact that if kai had his K'rik on him he could have taken it out or Kyoko said a scripture." 

  
Machi was confused now, she definitely didn't expect yui to be show chill about the situation.

"But as it seems both of these boys just ran like cowards," Yui stated as she walked past the three of them. "Now if you'll excuse me I have to make a phone call." 

"Hey- we're not cowards!" Kai clearly took offense but Kyoko knew he was so he wasn't bothered by it instead he just looked over machi. "Why don't you back to your dorm." He said to her. 

She nodded. "Yeah, thank you for your help!" She headed towards the door and left. 

"I'm not a coward am I?" Kai asked Kyoko who just gave him annoyed look. "Yes you are." 

XIIX  
"Do you have any idea why this would be happening?" Yui asks, she stood in front of the window of her dorm room looking outside as she held her cell phone up to her ear.   
"No, but weird things have been going since your uncle went missing..." Her father answered her.

"But how could a demon get into true cross? Isn't there something that prevents this?" Yui questioned.  
"We do but sometimes they can slip in, an exorcist probably didn't catch it in time," Yukio answered his daughter.

Yui wasn't happy with this answer and needed more, she needed to know what in the world was going on. "Father please tell me there's more to this! I know a demon couldn't just walk onto campus!" She said, raising her voice and demanding an answer.

"Look yui, i've got work to do we'll talk about this later." He answered but yui felt like he was avoiding the question. "But father-!” before she could say anything he hung up. Yui angerly placed her phone down on her desk "damnit..." She muttered and then let out a sigh.  
"What are you hiding...?" 

XiiX

  
"So have you reconsidered about joining a club?" Machi looked at her friend aiko as she sat across from her at the lunch table.  
"Well..." Machi said playing with her food with her chopsticks. "I think i have something in mind but it's not really a club." 

Akio tilted her head to the side a bit. "What do you mean by that?" She questioned.  
"It's more of an extra class." Machi answers. "I have to get my parents permission first though."   
  
"Why in the hell do you need permission?" Aiko asked with a mouth full of her rice.  
"Cause I'm going to try and be an exorcist like my dad" when machi answered akio choked on her food, she managed to swallow it all and coughed as she spoke. "You what now?" 

"Is there something wrong?" Machi asked, a bit puzzled by her friend's reaction. "I'm sorry machi but you don't seem the kind of girl who could really be one" akio answered. She had a point machi wasn't the kind of girl who could out up a fight and got scared by horror movies and stories.   
"I know, but what if i want to become stronger?" Machi said with a determined smile.  
Akio sighed. "If it's you wanna do i can't stop you..." She said.  
Machi shot up to her feet and leaned over the table to hug her friend. "I'd knew you support me!" She said with a slight giggle.  
"Ok ok, jeez people are staring..." Aiko said patting machi's back softly.

  
XiiX  
The short brown haired woman walked down the sidewalk as she was digging around in her purse for her keys. When she looked up to place them into the lock she noticed her daughter standing in front of the door.  
"Hi, mama!" She greeted mother.  
"Oh...machi what a surprise." Noriko said with a small smile and a bit confused about why her daughter was here.  
"You have a key why didn't you go inside?" She asked her daughter as machi moved out the way to let her mother unlock and open the front door.

"Cause i need your permission for something!" Machi answered as they stepped into the house.  
"Hm, my permission for what?" Noriko questioned.  
"Uh well..." Machi said as she reached in her school bag and pulled out a piece of paper. "I need you and dad to sign this so they can accept me into the cram school..."

Noriko looked at the paper with a shocked expression "c-cram school? You mean like to train to be an exorcist?"   
Machi nodded with a smile "yep!"

Noriko was in complete shock, her daughter that was scared of cats was gonna go deal with something that was definitely scarier then cats. 

"Why don't you leave it on the counter and me and your father will discuss it tonight when he gets home." Noriko said which machi agreed with a small happy nod. 

  
XiiX

Shiemi stared at the picture of their team on the all, it was among other pictures of previous paladins and their teams but theirs was the newest addition. Rin had only been the paladin for about a year before he went missing and when he did some people rumored that he left cause of the pressure of it. Not a lot of people enjoyed having the son of Satan their paladin but Shiemi knew rin never let it get to him, he knew it would take a while to gain people's respect so it never bothered him. But still, she couldn't help but think the same thing. But then she'd remember how happy he was when he was approved.

  
_"Shiemi!"_

_She turned around quickly to see her snow-white haired friend running towards her, he was excited and she could clearly see that by the way his tail swayed as he ran and he tightly hugged her. "Ah- rin what's going on?" She was surprised by it and when the half-demon pulled away he had a huge smile on his face. "I was approved."_

_"To be the paladin?" They had been waiting for months after rin finally sent in the application to the Vatican and now the happy news finally came._

_"Yeah! And you guys were approved for my team!"_

_Shiemi threw her arms around her friend's neck. "Oh rin! Your gonna be the paladin!" She was excited for him. "I gotta go tell Yukio! He's not gonna believe this!"_

_Shiemi pulled her arms before rin ran off to go tell his brother and the others, he seemed so happy, so why did someone take that away from him?_

Shiemi snapped out of her thoughts when she felt someone place a hand on her shoulder, it was Yukio. "We're gonna find him..." He said softly to his wife.

She lowered her gaze. "You always say that...but what if we don't? We only have two more months before the deadline..." 

The deadline, after the Vatican heard of rins disappearance they gave the team one year to find him, if they didn't they were to stop their search and they would appoint new paladin and team.   
Yukio let out a sigh and looked at the photo. "I know, but we will. But I can't promise we'll bring him back alive."

Shiemi felt like crying when she heard Yukio say that, she held it back though. "But his kids...suguro...they'd be devastated, we'd all be devastated!" She looked back up at her husband, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

"I know, but it's a good chance. Rin isn't that hard to kill, especially with his heart exposed. One good shot at it and he's dead, someone could have done that and just hid him somewhere-"

He stopped himself from saying anything else when he noticed the tears start running down shiemis face. He let out a sigh. "Sorry..."

"No...your right..." She wiped her tears away. "It's not a far-fetched idea, but still I don't think I could handle us finding rin dead." 

"I know, I don't think I could either."

Yukio may have hated his brother back when they were in high school but after the whole Illuminati situation they had mended their relationship, they still got on each other's nerves just like siblings did but it wasn't the same as back then so Yukio would definitely hate to see his brother dead. 

  
XiiX

Later that evening konekomaru came home, it was late so he was surprised to see Noriko still awake and standing in the doorway waiting for him. "Is something wrong?" He had asked her.

"Please look at this." She told him before handing the permission slip to her husband. He stared at it for a moment, a little confused but then it dawned on him. "Is machi trying to join the cram school?!" He was ask shocked as Noriko was when machi asked her about it earlier. 

"Yes, she stopped by when I came home from work and asked if we could sign it." 

He was in shock, machi had never shown interest in becoming an exorcist and in fact just hearing about demons and stuff seemed to frighten her a bit but now she wanted into the cram school?!

"S-so do we sign it?" He asked, even if it was surprising he didn't want to hold his daughter back from doing something she wanted to do but he would also understand if his wife didn't want her to join in something as dangerous as the cram school.

"I don't know! I mean I'm glad she's starting to think about what she wants to do in life, but an exorcist? She could get herself hurt or killed! She's our only daughter, I couldn't handle if something happened to her." Noriko didn't want machi to put her life in danger and to her knowledge machi hadn't had a tempting so why she even want to see as something as scary as demons. 

"I'll make sure, she stays safe." Konekomaru took Noriko hands into his own. 

"You can't promise that." She replied in a more soft tone.

"Your right, I can't but I promise the moment something bad happens like if she gets badly injured or something we can pull her out of the cram school."

Noriko felt a little bit calmer after hearing him say that and gave her husband a nod. "Alright, we'll let her join."


	4. Familiars.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Machi finally joins the cram school and they learn how to summon familiars though Izumo isn't too happy about the one her son summons.

_They all stood over a box, just staring down at it. Rin had received his jacket and now it was finally sinking in that he really was going to be the paladin._  
_"Well? Are you gonna open it?" Izumo questioned._

_Rin opened up the box to reveal the deep blue jacket, they all stood there in awe._

_"I get to wear this tomorrow..." Rin said as he took the jacket out of the box to get a closer look at it, it seemed so perfect._

_"No one said you couldn't try it on now," Shima said to him._

_"Your right!" Rin took off his old hooded exorcist jacket and handed it over to Ryuji. "Hold this."_

_"Right..."_

_The half-demon put on his new jacket, it fit perfectly and everything about it was perfect the back of it even had a slit wear his tail could comfortably hang out so he didn't need to have it coiled around his waist all day._

_The rest of his friends just looked at him, they were all in shock that this was actually happening, the son of Satan was going to be the paladin._

_Rin noticed them all looking at him and not saying anything. "Is something wrong?"_

_"No." Yukio was the one to break the silence. "It's just hard to believe this is actually happening."_

_"You better believe it cause tomorrow after the ceremony I'll officially be the paladin and you guy's get to be my teammates!" Rin had worked hard for this, the hardest anyone had seen him work. He worked hard to get all the misters he needed and get up there in the ranks and now all his hard work was paying off and he couldn't wait._

  
XiiX

Weeks had passed since machi got the okay from her parents to join the cram school and sent in her application for it and luckily she got in so now, she was nervously standing in front of the class while the teacher introduced her as a new student.

"Everyone please welcome Machi Miwa, she's a little late on joining so please help her out with anything she needs." The teacher said aloud to the class. "Here, the other students have already got these last week but your gonna need it as well." He said before handing machi a sheet of paper. "You may go find a seat now."

"Uh right!" She ran over to one of the empty desks and sat down, she looked down at the paper. She had to fill out some basic stuff but something caught her eye 'mister' she had no idea what that was.

After class, she promptly approached the suguro twins. "Uh...you two are smart, can you tell me what a mister is." 

"A mister?" Emiko rose her brow in confusion, she knew what it was but she was shocked machi didn't.  
"How do you not know what that is?" Kyoko was more annoyed than anything.

"I-i just don't..." Machi felt embarrassed now.

"A mister is a type of exorcist you want to be, there's a dragoon where you work with fire-arms, knight where you fight with a sword, aira where you recite words from the Bible or scriptures, tamer where you fight alongside a familiar and doctor where you'll help out when someone's injured." Emiko carefully explained to machi. 

"Oh! Thank you suguro!" Machi had a huge smile on her face as she thanked the girl.

"Ah, you can call me Emiko if you'd like, we've known each other since we were little." Emiko also felt like it would confusing especially if she called her and her brother by their last name. 

"Oh, then can I call you Kyoko?!" She asked the male twin who gave her a shocked expression. "What? No way." He answered her. 

"Kyoko don't be rude..." Emiko muttered to her brother. 

"It's fine, we all may have known each other since we were kids but we really don't hang out if we're not in Kyoto." Machi did feel a bit hurt by the fact she couldn't call Kyoko by his first name cause that meant he didn't really consider her a friend. 

"What mister are you two going for?" Machi wanted to change the subject but also get ideas for which one to pick. 

"Aria, though I guess I have considered adding on dragoon or doctor," Emiko answered she was definitely ambitious.

Machi looked down at the paper, she was definitely gonna have to think about it.

  
XiiX

Later in the week, the two tamers in the paladin team stopped by the class to show them all how they could possibly summon their own.

"Ok first your gonna need one of these papers or anything that has this symbol on it," Izumo said as she held up a summoning paper, all the students had been given on with a little needle at the beginning of the class.

"Then you just need a drop of your blood and say anything that comes to mind." Izumo pricked her finger with the needle and let the drop of blood fall on the paper. "I genuinely call the Deities of Harvest. Follow my wishes, leave none unfulfilled!"

And with that her pair of white foxes Mike and Uke appeared. 

"So cool..." Machi muttered as she saw the foxes be summoned. 

"Now you all try."

  
"I genuinely call the Deities of Harvest. Follow my wishes, leave none unfulfilled."

Izumo was taken back when she heard her daughter airi copy the words she said to summon her familiars and after she did a single white fox with a pink bow around it's just appeared just like Mike and Uke did. 

"Oh, Izumo she summoned one!" Shiemi said, all excited to see it. 

"Of course she did! She is my daughter after all." She gave airi a faint but proud smile. "Good job." 

After mami had seen airi summon one she pricked her finger with the needle given to her and dropped a bit of blood on the paper. "Uh, please come out..." She waited a moment and to her surprise, a baby Greenman appeared. 

"Kee!”

Mami smiled wide as she saw the cute little thing. "look mother I summoned one just like nee."

Shiemi clasps her hands together, she was so proud that she felt like crying. "Good job!"

  
"I couldn't summon anything," Emiko said with a sigh after trying.   
"Me neither," Kyoko responded. 

"I bet I could!" Kai was excited, he saw his little sister summon one so there was no doubt he could so he did the same thing pricking his finger. "Come out!” 

And to his amazement one appeared but instead of the fox being white it was black, almost like it was made of the flames of a certain familiar. 

Shiemi stared at it in shock but Izumo couldn't help but feel a bit of rage boil inside her, she was proud that Kai could summon one but.  
"I'm gonna kill him..."

She turned towards the door and walked down the long hallway.

"Ah! Izumo no wait it's not his fault!" Shiemi knew who Izumo meant by wanting to kill.

Izumo walked into their office. 

"Oh, how's the familiar summoning going?" Konekomaru had asked her but instead of a response, Izumo grabbed the back of Shima's jacket and practically dragged him out of his chair. 

"Ah- Izumo what's going on?!" Shima didn't get a response out of his wife instead she just dragged him down the hallway and back to the class, she pointed towards the familiar their son had just summoned who kai was now holding in his arms.

Shima instantly knew why Izumo seemed to be so angry now. "Oh...no..." He muttered. 

"How...how did this happen?" Izumo was definitely not happy about how it seemed that a white fox and a part of Shima's Yamantaka had merged to make kai's new familiar. 

"Don't ask me! I didn't have anything to do with this!" Shima explained trying to defend himself in the situation.

Izumo scoffed. "Your lucky I don't want the kids to be fatherless..." She said to him and Shima let out a nervous laugh in response. 

  
XiiX

That evening after class machi sat in her dorm with Akio, she was busy filling out the sheet she was given earlier in the week, she really should have done it then cause the teacher only gave them till Sunday to do it. "I have no idea what to put down for a mister..." Machi complained as she let her head rest against the coffee table she was sitting at. 

"Mister?" Akio questioned from the couch. 

"The type of exorcist I wanna be..." Machi knew Akio didn't know much about exorcists, machi barely knew anything as well and she now wishes she had asked her dad more about what his job was like. 

"Ok, what types are there?" Akio asked, she got off the couch and down to the floor to sit next to her friend. 

"Dragoon, aria, tamer, doctor, and knight," Machi answered. 

"Well, you like all those doctor shows and stuff so why not pick that?" Akio was right, machi liked that kind of stuff and she enjoyed helping others that before she decided to join the cram school she had considered becoming a nurse, it also helped that knew a lot more about being a doctor than all the other options.

"Okay then! Doctor it is!" Machi said as she picked up her pen and started filling it out.

"Are you sure this is something you really wanna do machi? I mean isn't this kinda dangerous?" Akio was a bit concerned about her friend's safety, she didn't want to seem like she was trying to hold her back or anything but she didn't want to see her friend hurt either. 

"Yeah! It's gonna be so much fun and I'm gonna make friends too!" Machi really hadn't taken the dangerous part into consideration just yet she was only thinking about becoming friends with the other students and having fun.

"Right...just be careful," Akio said as she let out a sigh. 

  
XiiX

Throughout the next couple of weeks machi really saw how difficult the class was, she was hardly keeping up with the homework and lessons, and when it was time for their exwire exam they had barely passed due to machi's clumsiness. 

All of this was getting on Kyoko's nerves, how could a girl who hardly understand a thing in the class joins all of sudden? He was honestly waiting for the moment where she would just give up and drop out of the classes. 

"I can't believe her, she's just gonna get us all killed..." Kyoko muttered he and his sister were sitting in Emiko's dorm together while going over some stuff for a test tomorrow.

"Who are you talking about?" She asked she looked through her notes she had taken in class.

"Mwia! Who else would I be talking about?!" Kyoko was clearly frustrated by her but Emiko clearly wasn't having it.

"Machi is trying her best just like the rest of us, so don't be so rude to her, you're not perfect either." Emiko before letting out a sigh. "Just like earlier, the teacher asked you to recite a passage but you kept stumbling over your words."

Her brother's face went red with embarrassment. "W-well you know I'm not good at that sort of thing!" Kyoko had always been shy like this, he was smart but when he had to speak in front of the class or something he got nervous and could hardly speak, it was just one of his flaws, one of his many flaws. 

"I'm just saying is, don't pick on machi just because she doesn't understand the class that well she made it this far didn't she?" Emiko was right, she was always right he shouldn't be mean towards her but was he gonna stop? Probably not.

"Yeah sure...whatever..."

XiiX

A woman in a green uniform and hood over her head to cover her features walked down a clean white hallway. She approached a door that automatically opened up for her. "The serum is almost done, ma'am." She spoke out to a woman with long wavy black hair that almost reached the floor, she was wearing a fancy and long black dress that had see-through sleeves that dangled. "Good...what about the. collar?" She asked in a calm tone, her hand patting the head of another girl wearing the same uniform as the other but she was leaning against the black-haired woman's lap.

"They'll have it done soon as well, we'll before the deadline." 

"Thank you for the update fox...i centrally can't wait for the show to begin..." The woman in the black dress smirked faintly. 

"Soon director, till then should we have more fun with the cram school students, it seems the demon we left for them wasn't enough." The woman who was just called 'fox' said to her.

"No, not yet..."


	5. Bickering.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mami gets help from her friends to tend to her mothers garden but when shiemi doesn't seem all too excited from the tiredness of work she let's her anger out on emiko and Kyoko.

Deadline countdown: two weeks.

"Welcome to our garden!" Mami had said happily, she had brought machi over too see the bright and colorful garden since after mentioning to her about it in class one day machi really wanted to see it so on their day off she brought her over to do that.

Machi stared in awe, it was much more beautiful then she imagined. "Wow, you take care of all this on your own?"

Mami giggled a bit. "Oh no, yui helps me sometimes but it's more of my mom's garden than anything she just hasn't had the time to tend to it so I do it!" 

"Sometimes I forget you're related, you both are pretty different," Machi said to her friend. 

"We are?" Mami tilted her head a bit as she asked that.

"Yeah! Your so nice and approachable but she's so intimidating and maybe a little scary." Machi explained. 

"What was that?" 

Both of the girls jumped at the sound of Yui's voice.

"Oh! Hello Yui!" Mami had said as her older sister walked down the steps, instead of wearing her uniform as machi had always seen her wear she was wearing a white kimono with a blue and yellow flower pattern on it and the sleeves were tucked behind into her blue obi. 

"Hello you two, I didn't know machi was coming over today." Yui had a faint smile on her machi though her presence still made machi a little uneasy. 

"Oh! She wanted to see the garden so I'm showing it to her!" Mami wasn't bothered by her sister being there she was, in fact, happy to see her. 

"Oh that's nice, but don't take to long I need you to take over the shop for a bit so I can study." Even if yui was smart and stuff she still felt the need to study at any given moment. 

"Right! I'll be there soon!"

"Alright, then and machi, I'm sorry if I come off a bit scary," Yui said after she turned around to walk back up the steps to the supply shop.

Machi tensed up a bit. "N-no it's ok!"

"Come on, let's go see the garden now." Mami grabbed onto machi's hand and leads her through the gate.

The garden wasn't huge but there were lots of different plants around that made it feel big, machi found it beautiful and Mami was just happy she could show it off to her though she got a little disappointed when she noticed a plant starting to die.

"Oh no..." She knelt down and touched its leaves. "Poor thing, guess I didn't take good care of you." She felt a ping of guilt, it was a plant they needed for the shop and now it was dying. 

"You can save it right?" Machi got into her knees next to Mami. 

"Maybe, but honestly with school and the shop I haven't had much time, it doesn't help that yui's gone most days too." Mami knew a lot about plants and stuff but tending to a garden, shop, and doing school work was definitely a hard task. 

"Hopefully mom won't be busy soon...they only got two weeks left anyways..." Mami muttered.

"Two weeks...?" Machi was confused.

"Do you not know about the deadline?" Mami had asked and machi shook her head in response. 

"The Vatican only gave them a year to find our uncle and in two weeks it'll be a year since he went missing."

Machi felt bad for asking now, she had noticed Kyoko and Emiko being tenser than they usually are (mainly Kyoko) but she didn't know why but now she put two and two together. 

"oh...i'm sorry." Machi apologized. 

"No, it's alright. I'm sure it'll be okay soon." Mami said with a tiny smile on her face though machi still felt bad until she got a great idea.

"I have an idea!" Machi quickly got back up to her feet and started heading towards the gate. "Ah-? Wait machi!" Mami called out but machi just shouted back with. "Stay here I'll be back soon!" As she left mami confused. 

When machi did return to the garden she had brought the rest of their friend group, even if she had to drag some of them there. 

"Tada! We're gonna help you with the garden today!" 

A big smile formed on mami's face as she clasps her hands together. "Really?!”

It didn't take long for mami to put them all to work, she had the boys carry bags of dirt even if Kyoko complained that they were hella heavy but Kai didn't seem to care, he liked helping. 

Rika helped dig holes while anzu placed the plants inside them, Emiko helped airi water all the other plants, and machi and Mami put fertilizer down. 

They worked all day in the garden, not something any of them really wanted to spend their day off especially when summer was coming and it was pretty warm outside but they all felt better the moment they saw yui come through the gate with a tray off iced-tea.

"Oh thank God I'm dying..." Kai muttered as he took one of the cups. 

"Oh I completely forgot about the shop, I'm sorry..." Mami said since she remembered Yui asked her to take over for a bit earlier. "No, it's alright, the garden needed some care." Yui understood and was actually happy the garden was almost back to its former glory. "I'm sure mother will be happy about it too." 

Mami was excited to see her mother's reaction but she knew she'd have to wait till much later into the evening to see it. 

So she did, she stayed up later than she usually did for her parents to return from work and when she heard them she rushed out of her and Yui's shared room out to the shop. "M-mother! Did you see the garden!" 

"Oh yes it looks nice..." Shiemi said softly as she walked past her, gently patting her head.

Mami felt disappointed, she wanted her mom to be more excited. She stood alone in the shop after her parents left for their room for the night, mami definitely felt like crying but she held it back. "It's not fair..." She muttered softly. 

XiiX

The next day they all Mami was walking down the long hallway to the cram school when kai approached her. "Hay! How did your mom like the garden?" Kai asked excitedly 

"She said it was nice..." There was a waver in mami's voice as she spoke. 

Kai's smile turned into a confused frown. "Is something wrong?" He asked.

"No, I'm fine." Mami simply answered as she entered the cram school.   
Kai was worried about his friend but he didn't know what was the matter so he didn't know how to fix it. 

Kai walked in after and quickly went over to Emiko's desk. "Hey, do you know what's up with Mami?" He had asked her.

Emiko shrugged. "No, I don't is something wrong?"

"I asked about how her mom liked the garden but she got all sad when I did," Kai explained and that made Emiko instantly worry about the other girl. 

After classes finished up Emiko went up to mami in the courtyard with Kyoko following behind her. "Hey, kai said you sounded a little sad when he asked about the garden, is everything ok?"

Mami looked over at Emiko as she sat on the fountain, she could feel a little bit of anger and frustration boil inside her when she saw the older twins come up to her. Their dad was the reason her parents come home tired and late every night and due to that her mother didn't seem all that excited to see the garden which hurt mami's feelings. 

She tried holding back what she wanted to say to them but she had been holding it in for so long that now it was starting to flow out.

"It's not fair..." Mami started out softly saying.

Emiko tilted her head to the side in confusion. "what's not fair?" 

"Your dad is the one who's gone but it feels like my parents are gone to cause we hardly see than cause they're busy!" Mami finally snapped and it didn't help that Emiko her self was hot-headed when provoked just like her father was. "Well I'm sorry, I can't help the fact he's missing!" She snapped back.

"It's still not fair though!" 

"W-well, at least you can go to their office and see them!" Kyoko chimed in, he was just as much of a hot-head as Emiko but till now he had stayed quiet. 

"Yeah! We can't do that! Yes our other dads there but it doesn't help when we see him we think of the other and it makes us just feel worse!” Emiko shouted.

"Well, then I can't wait for the two weeks to be up! So it'll be over and done with!" Mami didn't care if they found their dad during the last two weeks she selfishly just wanted her life to be back to normal and Emiko clearly saw this cause when she said that the others brown eyes widen, 

She could tell Emiko was fighting back tears which made mami's expression softened and a huge wave of regret hit her. "Emiko...i-"

Before she could say anything else Emiko quickly turned around and started leaving.

"Kyoko I didn't mean it..." She tried apologizing to the other but instead she got a glare from him before he said "shut up." In an angry tone.  
He turned around also and went to follow his sister.

Mami lowered her head, she was so wrapped up in her own frustration that she didn't take their feelings into consideration and it made her feel bad, this is when tears finally spilled from her dark green eyes. 

XiiX

Late that night Mami was still awake and sitting in the shop while her little familiar she named kiki sat in a teacup of water and played in it, she rested her head in her palm while she was pretty much lost in her own thoughts. She was still thinking about the fight she had with the twins and she felt ashamed for what she had said to them. 

She didn't snap out of her thoughts until she heard the door open. 

"Mami, what are you still doing up?" Yukio had asked her, he was utterly confused since she was usually fast asleep by now.

"Oh, no reason I just lost track of time." Mami had answered, picking up the teacup with her little Greenman still inside but now making sounds of enjoyment from being picked up.

"Oh well don't stay up too late you got school in the morning." He responded before him and Shimei went to their room but before shiemi could step through the open sliding door mami grabbed her hand.

"What is it sweetie?" She has asked after looked back at her daughter. "Um, what's gonna happen if you don't find uncle rin during the last two weeks?" Mami had asked her.

Shiemi was a little taken back by this question, she had never asked about her uncle like this before. "Oh well, the Vatican is gonna force us to stop the search and make someone else the new paladin." She explained to mami. 

"So...your not gonna look for him anymore after that?" 

Shiemi frowned, she didn't like having this talk with her. "No, we are, but even with the resources true cross can provide us we haven't found much so we don't think we'll get any further than we already have." 

"Oh..." Mami let go on her mother's hand and shiemi moved it to pat her head gently. "Why are you asking about it?" She asked softly.

"No reason..." There was a reason but she didn't want to say instead she just headed back towards her bedroom, leaving shiemi confused and concerned. 

The talk she had with her mother just made mami feel even worse, but she probably made Emiko and Kyoko feel even worse during their argument. 

XiiX

During their walk back to their dorms everyone stood a great distance from the twins, everyone knew when they were pissed off or irritated cause they just at this treating aura around them. "Jeez, why was I adopted into a family of hot-heads...?" Rika muttered to the others. 

"The real question is who pissed them off?" Kai had questioned, he knew Kyoko was easy to piss off but Emiko was more level-headed so someone had to of done or say something bad to the two of them. "Did you get any bad news about your dad?" Yui had asked rika but she shook her head. 

"No, if we did I'm sure I'd be just as mad as them." 

"Maybe we could like...ask them?" Anzu had said, though everyone gave her a weird look afterwords. "What?"

"You don't know them as we do and, if we do we could either get them to snap at us or hear them rant about it for hours," Rika explained. "Which I don't want to go through."

"We can hear you guys you know!” Emiko had shouted out, even if they were keeping their distance they could still hear everything they were saying since they weren't really being that quiet.

"Then tell us what happened!" Kai said.

"Let's just say a certain junior high student said something she shouldn't have!" 

That just made them more confused and Kai tilted his head a bit. 

"I know airi can be mean sometimes but what can she say to piss you both off this much?"

"No! The other one!" Kyoko finally said.

"Mami...? But mami wouldn't do such a thing." Yui knew her sister wouldn't do anything to make them mad since she found it equally as scary as they all did. 

"Well she did yesterday!" Emiko said. "She said it was our dad's fault that all your parents don't call home till late at night and that her mom was too tired to be excited about the garden!"

"Oh...thats why she was sad about that..." Kai muttered softly. 

Yui's heart sank when she heard that but she didn't think mami would actually snap at them like that. "I-i don't know, it doesn't sound like the mami I know." 

"Well you better fucking believe it!" 

Yep, Emiko was angry, she never cursed unless she was. 

"Look I'm sure mami didn't mean it." Rika chimed in, yes she as a little angry herself after she heard that Mami had said that but she wasn't the one to hold grudges like those two were. 

"Yeah- well- whatever, come on Kyoko!" Emiko grabbed the younger twin by his wrist and practically dragged him back to their dorms. "H-hey don't pull so hard!" 

"Jeez I hate when they get like this..." Rika said before letting out a frustrated sigh. 

"I'm gonna go get my sister's side of the story," Yui said as she went through her bag for the key to the supply shop. 

"Yeah good idea..." Kai mumbled, he honestly hated that they were fighting. 

XiiX

Yui stepped into the shop to see her sister sitting at the counter. "Oh, yui I didn't know you were coming home today..." Mami softly said to her older sister.

"Well I didn't plan on it but then two very angry birdies told me something," Yui replied with as she approached the counter. "Did you really say those things...?" 

Mami's gaze lowered, she was hoping she could have fixed it without yui finding out. "Yes... I didn't mean to though, I was just...being selfish..." 

Yui let out a sigh, yes she was angry with mami but she didn't have the heart to show it instead she looked at her with a soft expression. "You have to apologize, I mean they probably won't forgive you right away but it's for the best." 

"I know and I will, I'm just scared." 

"Oh they won't hurt you and if they do I'll shoot them," Yui said with a faint smile, she wasn't joking she would actually do that and Mami knew this. 

"Please don't-"

XiiX

The next day in the hallway mami waited to see Kyoko and Emiko come through the door, she was gonna apologize but when she did see them she tensed up and forgot everything she was gonna say 'come on mami if you can say those mean things you can say you're sorry too.' She thought to herself and finally gathered the courage to speak out. "I'm sorry!" She suddenly said making the twins stop in their tracks.

"Wha-?" Emiko looked at her confused and shocked that she actually was apologizing to them. 

"I said I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said those things to you two. I was just angry and disappointed...but I didn't really mean to say it, I know how much uncle rin being gone is hurting you and I didn't put that into consideration." 

Emiko stared at her for a moment then sighed. "It's okay..."

Kyoko looked at his sister with a shocked expression. "Emiko!"

"Oh come on, we can't stay mad at her forever!" Emiko said turning to look at him before looking back at Mami.

"Wait really?" Mami was actually surprised that she forgave her.

"Yes, I guess I can understand why you were frustrated so it's okay." 

Mami felt relieved, she was glad that she was forgiven. "Oh that's a relief..." 

Emiko nudged her brother making him groan. "Yeah I forgive you to..." He muttered. 

They were still a little bitter about it but what's the point in fighting, they were expected to fight as a team so holding such a grudge would affect that and could put them in danger so they forgave her. 

XiiX

The half-demon laid there, in a room that was once a clean white but he had burnt the walls and floor a bit. His wrists were bound to the bed which he could get out but he didn't have the strength that he usually did. His tired blue eyes just started up at the ceiling he grew to hate looking at. 

He wanted to look at was his friends, his husband, his kids he wanted to see them and not this damn room for a change but at this rate, he was losing hope of getting that chance. 

He had a deep and awful feeling he was gonna die here or with the route, they were going in, his human half would die here. 

But all he could do was lay there and keep onto that little hope he had. 


	6. Lonely familiar.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuro is frustrated over the fact they haven't found rin yet and the paladin remembers all the goods times they spent together while they pack up their office.

Deadline countdown: one week.

The black cat sat on the window-sill, staring out at the street, his spilt tail swaying behind him. He was waiting, waiting for someone.   
His ears perked up every time he saw someone walk past the house he was guarding from the inside. 'When did I become a house cat...?' The familiar thought to himself. 

He didn't mind being a house cat when there were people around to pet him, give him food, or to lay on rins lap. The familiar missed his owner a lot, he almost felt the same way he did when he found out Shiro died. 

He snapped out of his own thoughts when the door started to open, he jumped down and walked over to it to greet whoever was coming in. 'Rin?!' He was hopeful but instead, it was Akemi, she was arriving home from school. 

"Hello, Kuro!" She quickly reached down to pet the cat's head but he brushed her off and went back to his window. The young girl frowned. "Aw your no fun anymore..." He heard her mutter. 

He had started to ignore all the other humans of the household after he found his way home after the incident. 

Later that night two more humans came home but Kuro again brushed them off when he saw it was just Kyoko and Emiko to visit for the weekend. like Akemi did Emiko tried to pet him but he refused it and ran off. 

"What is up that cat?" Emiko said after seeing him run away from him and sit by the window again. 

"He misses dad," Kyoko answered her. 

Kyoko was right Kuro did miss rin, he was mainly mad by the fact he knew what happened to his friend but no one here could understand him as rin could so he couldn't say anything and it didn't help that to him, no one was looking for him. 

Late that night when Ryuji finally came home Kuro made the decision to just slip out without being noticed by the exhausted exorcist, if no one was gonna look for rin he was. 

In the morning Akemi was the one to notice Kuro was missing from his usual spot. "Hey where's Kuro?" She asked her older siblings. "You know he likes to run off for a bit he'll be back," Kyoko answered her. 

It wasn't unusual for Kuro to venture off on his own but he had pretty much stayed in that same spot for the whole time their dad was gone so yes, it was a little concerning but they didn't worry about it too much yet. But when lunchtime came they did grow worried, Kuro never stayed out too long he always came back when he was hungry so he always came back before lunch to get food. 

"Maybe we should look for him, I don't think dad would appreciate if he came back and found out we lost his familiar," Emiko suggested, Kyoko agreed to it pretty quickly since Kuro pretty much was apart of their family. 

Akemi wanted to go with them but Emiko told her that she needed to stay home just in case Kuro did make his way home, which she wasn't really that happy about but she didn't complain or argue with her big sister.

They searched the nearby area but didn't find any sign off him. "Maybe we should call the others to help us..." Emiko muttered. 

"Why? We can find Kuro just fine on our own." Kyoko said, he wasn't the type to admit when he needed help but his sister was the opposite. "We'd cover more ground with all of us," Emiko said as she pulled out her phone. 

XiiX

The office was filled with all cardboard boxes, filled with old paperwork and such. They were starting to pack their office up since now all of them had just accepted finding rin wasn't gonna happen within the week.   
It was sad and silent as they all just packed and closed boxes.

"What are we gonna do about his sword?" Konekomaru asked, breaking the silence.

"I talked to my dad the other day about it and he said we could return to Kyoto, they'd probably just hang it up on the wall in the branch office as a relic," Ryuji answered as he placed stuff into a cardboard box. 

The sword was owned by Myoo Dharani before it was rins so it was only right it was returned to them. 

"That's a good idea..." Yukio had said quietly. 

They heard a choked sob and out of instinct all of them looked over at shiemi who had tears running down her face. 

"Shiemi..." Izumo muttered when she saw her crying she would have been annoyed by this back in high school but since she had a very valid reason to be crying right now she just felt sympathy. 

"I'm sorry, I've been holding it in for so long that I can't help it, we're never gonna find rin!" Shiemi had cried over it during the year he was gone but now the sadness was just hitting her like a bus. 

Everyone was sad about but shiemi was the only one in the group who openly said or cried about it, Ryuji felt like he had to keep himself together for the kids but even he felt like unraveling, all of them did. 

"Come on! Maybe instead of being sad about it we could like remember all the good times!" Shima didn't like it when things felt so sad so he was trying to cheer them up like rin would have done. "Like, the Christmas party we had in our first year that was fun right?"

"Yeah, it was," Konekomaru answered. "Moriyama looked kinda funny in her costume."

Shiemi let out a small giggle as she wiped her tears away. "Well I thought everyone was dressing up so I did." 

"Yeah! And how about the bathhouse or when we went to Kyoto tower and took that picture!"

"Yeah, seeing Okumura's face when he saw us spelling out Satan was great." Izumo laughed slightly at the thought of his angry face when he saw them. 

"Was it better then Yuki's mortified face when he found rin and suguro kissing?" Shiemi said, making a groan leave Ryuji. "Yeah, a bad way for you all to find out we were dating..." he muttered.

"Yes and I'm glad it was the only time it happened," Yukio said he didn't appreciate finding out by walking into him and rin's dorm to find the two practically all other each other one day during their second year. 

"Jeez, it was awkward after that..." Shima muttered, it really was an awkward situation no one ever expected them to get together but they didn't mind when they found out. 

"More awkward when we found out you and kamiki drunkenly did it and Kai popped out nine months later?" Ryuji said making shima choke on his own spit. 

"Well! Hey, at least it didn't turn out bad! I didn't get beat like you said you would if I didn't step up!" Shima was right, when they did find out Izumo was pregnant with Kai Ryuji threatened to beat him up if he didn't step up as a father for the kid. 

They all stayed silent for a moment, they felt better after remembering the good and awkward times instead of the bad and sad ones, but now everyone kinda wished rin was here to make some joke or snarky reply. But he wasn't. 

"I'm gonna miss him..." Shiemi muttered. 

"We all are..." Yukio said after placing his hand on her shoulder. 

XiiX

All the exwires met up at a small park, they all knew kuro and knew they had to find him expect machi of course.

"Wait, who's Kuro?" She had asked.

Kyoko let out an annoyed groan. "He's our dad's familiar." 

"A Cat Sídhe to be specific," Emiko said, though machi was still confused she didn't know what a Cat Sídhe was.

"It's a demon that possesses cats." Yui had said after seeing machi still confused but that mention of a cat made her tense up. "A-a cat?!" 

Everyone else was now confused. "Machi...are you scared of cats?" Kai had asked her. "W-what?! No way! I'm not scared of cats!" Machi answered, but it was obvious she was.

"Machi, if you are you don't have to help us..." Anzu said to her but machi still on insisted on helping, no matter how scared she was of cats. Especially a demon cat. 

"Ok, we should all spit up, Kyoko and Kai you two can go together, machi and anzu you two are together, rika you can come with me and yui, and airi and mami you can go with each other," Emiko said in a very leader like fashion, though no one minded cause she had always been like this, well yui did cause she liked being in control of things but she didn't say anything this time.

"Can't believe I'm spending my Sunday looking for a cat..." Airi muttered under her breath, she wasn't happy about this and it didn't help that she had been paired up with who she thought was the second most annoying person in their group, the first being machi. 

They all split up into their groups, going in different directions to look for the black cat. Sadly they couldn't just ask people if they had seen him cause Kuro was a demon no one without a tempting could see him. So finding him was proving to be very difficult, though no one was giving up even if machi practically clung to anzu in fear of being the one to spot the cat, though the white-haired female didn't mind if machi was scared of cats she could just use her screams of a sign of Kuro she was also used to her since whenever she was home in Kyoto her younger sister Momoko always clung to her. 

Both Kyoko and Kai weren't having any luck either, they looked around the nearby area but they knew Kuro could have gone anywhere by now. "Jeez, my dad's gonna kill me if he found out we lost Kuro..." Kyoko muttered.

"Which one?" Kai asked, he was trying to lighten the mood but his friend was definitely not having it.

"Not the time for jokes Kai..." He grumbled. 

Kai answered with a "right, sorry." Then it went back to silence as they walked down the sidewalk together then it dawned on Kyoko on where the familiar might be. "I have an idea, follow me." Kyoko suddenly said before his slow pace turned quick. "Ah- wait up!" Kai called out as he quickly followed behind his friend. 

When they made it to a graveyard Kai was panting, he liked running but the run to the graveyard was a long one. Kyoko seemed to focus to really catch his own breath though. 

"What are we doing here...?" Kai asked between breaths. "Kuro might be here, my dad said sometimes he comes here." Kyoko had answered but the made the purple-haired boy even more confused. "Why though?" He asked.

"It's where my grandfather is buried." Kyoko said as he stepped through the metal gate, shirt Fujimoto wasn't really their grandfather biologically but when he was ever spoken about rin always called him 'dad' or 'my old man' so whenever he and his sisters mentioned him they always said, grandfather. 

"But your grandpa is alive and in Kyoto," Kai said, he clearly didn't know who Kyoko was talking about but it didn't help that they only talked about him around his dad. 

"No my other dad's father!" Kyoko said to him.

Kai still blinked in confusion. "But...satan is in Gahanna." 

"Oh shut up!" Kyoko shouted before he started walking. "Just stay here!" He ordered. 

Kyoko walked on the stone pathway, till he stopped at one specific grave. And he was right Kuro was there, curled up near the large headstone though he looked up when he noticed Kyoko stop in front of him. "Hey there buddy..." Kyoko knelt down. "What are you doing here...?" His voice was much softer then it was when he was talking to Kai just a minute ago. 

Kuro looked away, he was disappointed to see rins son and not rin himself. 'You wouldn't understand...' He thought to himself and since Kyoko wasn't rin he couldn't understand what he said. 

"Come on let's just get you home, we're worried about you." Kyoko reached out to pick Kuro up. But what he had said just made Kuro feel angry. 'Worried about me...? You should be worried about rin!' He hissed at Kyoko, something he had never done before and it startled him a bit. "Hey come on now." Kyoko picked the cat up despite his hissing but this just made him Angerer. 'No! You all aren't looking for him! Do you all not care!?' Kuro had said but to Kyoko, it just sounded like a bunch of meows and hisses. 

Kyoko was carrying the cat until kuro had enough and suddenly turned big to Kyoko's and kai's shock. 

XiiX

Emiko's phone rang and which she quickly picked up. "Did you find him?" She quickly asked since she saw it was kai who had called her. "Uh yeah but, he's kinda lashing out." She heard Kai say making her reddish-brown eyes go wide. "Lash out?!" 

Both Yui and rika were startled by this when they heard Kuro was lashing out. 

"What did you two do?!" Emiko shouted at Kai through the phone. "Nothing! He just- suddenly turned big!" Kai answered, sounded very panicked. 

"Right, tell us where you guys are and we'll be there soon," Emiko said, calmer now. 

After kai had told them where they were located the three girls rushed over to them when they arrived they clearly saw Kuro big and lashing out, knocking things down and scaring people who clearly couldn't see that large cat. 

"God, we can't leave you boys alone for a minute..." Rika had muttered after seeing the scene. "It's not our fault!" Kyoko answered with. 

"Ok, we're asking for help we can't handle kuro alone like this." Yui went to pull out her phone to inform their parents about Kuro but kai stopped her. "No way! We'll get in trouble if they find out!" 

"We didn't bring weapons or anything so we can't handle him like this!" Yui was being persistent as always. 

"No, let me talk to him." Kyoko turned his head to his very confused twin sister. "Your not dad, you can't understand what he's saying." Emiko had said to him. 

"I don't care, I would rather try and talk him down than hurt him," Kyoko argued back, which Emiko agreed with, she didn't think that if her dad did come back he would like seeing Kuro hurt or worse. 

"Alright but the moment he tries to hurt you we're calling them!" Emiko said as she watched Kyoko approach the angry cat. 

"Kuro!" Kyoko shouted to get the lashing out cat's attention and it worked, kuro looked at the boy with angry eyes. 

"We're gonna find him!" Kyoko had shouted out, making the cat's eyes go wide for a second before glaring at him again and growling. 'Liar...!'

"I know you're angry, I am too but we're gonna find him! Even if it takes years we'll find him!" Even Kyoko couldn't understand the cat, he knew what he was feeling mainly cause that what he was feeling, the loss of hope of seeing his dad was going down too and the deadline vastly approaching didn't help. 

Kuro's eyes went wide again, did he actually understand or was he just saying that?

"I miss him to Kuro, we all miss him but you can't lash out like this...you just gotta have hope." Even Kyoko didn't believe that part but he still said it. "

Kuro just stared at Kyoko, it made him feel bad.

"And if dad doesn't come back..." Kyoko reached his hand out to place it on the cats large head. "You could be my familiar if you want..." 

And in that moment it's like kuro could see rin instead of Kyoko, but not the white-haired adult he was now more like when he was still raven-haired and 15, back when he was comforting him about Shiro's death. 

Tears formed in the cat's large green eye and just like that Kuro was small again, letting out loud crying meows. Kyoko knelt down again and opened his arms for the cat to jump in, letting him pet him while he cried. 

"Sorry we took so long!" Anzu said as the other four joined the group who was just staring at Kyoko who just calmed kuro down.

"What happened?" Mami asked.

"Kyoko calmed him down..." Emiko muttered, she was a bit shocked that he actually did that.

"Man, kyoko must be a cat whisperer." Emiko heard machi say, but that wasn't true. "Or...he feels the same way kuro does, cause just like kuro he's been more angry and initiated during this whole year...it just makes me worry about what's gonna happen when the deadline does come." Emiko said, she was worried about her brother cause him and their dad was always close, yes he loved all of them equally but when Kyoko was young and scared, sick or hurt it was rin he always went to for help and he was always there to comfort him and tell him everything was gonna be ok but now that was suddenly gone and she knew it hurted Kyoko a lot to know that they may never get him back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, kai was a mistake but they love him.


	7. Demonic dorms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demons make their way into the dormitory so they must fight to protect themselves.

**Deadline Countdown: 4 days.**

_Before the ceremony nobody knew who was gonna take angels place, the Vatican kept it a secret though rin did want to rub it in everyone's faces that he, the son of Satan was gonna be their paladin but he held himself back._

_The only people who did know beforehand were the kids, Ryuji's parents, and Shima's parents and siblings, though after they told them it didn't take long for the rest of the Kyoto branch to find out._

_It was worth it though, seeing angels face when he saw rin all dressed up in his new jacket and being announced to be the new paladin made the experience much better._

_They all stood with rin as the Vatican made their speech, it was a good moment for all of them. Rin was supposed to act serious during the whole thing but while he stood before everyone he had that huge smile on his face, his tail probably never stopped swaying behind him either._

_He was happy, he had made it. He had done what everyone thought was impossible._

XiiX

"The Vatican has declined your extension." Mephisto was the one who said that Yukio stood in front of his desk, his fists clutching on each side of him. "Why? He's the son of Satan him being gone is a potential threat especially of he ran off on his own." Yukio said firmly, he didn't believe rin ran off on his own free will but it was definitely an option. 

"Oh, they care, just not enough to extend it. They need a paladin and your lucky they're even letting have these last four days, if I hadn't convinced them they would have stopped it already." Mephisto had that smirk Yukio hated with a great passion while he said that. "What about my application?" Yukio then asked.

"They declined it as well, you have the rank but not the credentials." Yukio had applied to be the paladin a couple of weeks beforehand, not that he really wanted to be one he just thought if he did he would have the power to keep the search going and if they did find rin reappoint him as a paladin but unlike rin, he didn't have the misters. 

"Right, thank you for your time." Yukio turned to leave the director's office before he heard him say. "It must be a shame for his children, they lost him around the same age you two were when poor Fujimoto passed." 

This didn't sit right with Yukio, he just grabbed the doorknob and twisted it open. "Unlike him, rin isn't dead." 

"You sound so sure of that, though you don't know." 

Yukio didn't say anything else, he just walked out of the office and closed the door behind him. 

"He didn't yell at you did he?" Shiemi had been waiting outside the door for him. She grew concerned when she saw that familiar angry expression on his face. "Yuki?" 

He looked over at her, his expression softening a bit. "No, but the Vatican declined the extension and my application." He answered.

Shiemi looked down. "Oh, so it really is almost over..." She muttered. 

"We still have four more days." 

"But, what's four more days when we have nothing to go on?!" Shiemi's gaze moved back up to Yukio's face, she was right they had nothing. The only thing that was left at the scene, rins sword, very broken phone, bullet casings, and Kuro hiding away in a bush. 

"I know, but things have always worked out for us in the pas-"

"You sound like rin..." Shiemi cut him off and she was right again, this was something rin would say so he stopped. Yukio let out a deep sigh before saying. "Let's just get back to the office." 

XiiX

Machi hopped down the steps, trying to catch up with the two boys as they walked down them. School had ended for the day so they were just heading back to their dorms. "Hey kai!" Machi called out to him, making the two stop and look over at her. "Can we compare notes?!" She stopped a step above them. 

"Oh yeah, as long as you don't mind the long walk back to our dorm," Kai answered he was happy to help machi.

"Yeah, that's fine!" She replied back with.

"You two have fun with that..." Kyoko said while he just started walking back to the dorms without the two. 

"Ah, wait up Kyoko!" Kai called out as he and machi hurried behind him.

Back at the dorms, the three were in kai's dorm. They somehow convinced Kyoko on the way back to help them with their notes since in kai's words Kyoko was better at paying attention during school so his notes would be better but Kyoko wasn't that happy about it being the grumpy guy he was. 

"So what are you gonna do this weekend machi?" Kai asked her while looking down at the notes in his hand. 

"Uh, probably go with Akio to visit her parents or go home myself." She answered while copying down some of the notes Kyoko had written. "What about you suguro?" She glanced up at Kyoko who was sitting on kai's bed, not really paying attention to the two of them as he just did his homework. 

"Go home but depending on the outcome of the rest of the week go up to Kyoto for the day to return my dad's sword." He simply answered back with. 

"Why do you need to return it?" She sat up straight and tilted her head. 

"Cause it belonged to myouda before it was my dad's." 

"Oh right-" machi should have known this she was born into myouda just like these two were. 

"Cool if you see takezo beat him up for me," Kai said as he too looked over at Kyoko on his bed. 

"Mhm..." Kyoko wasn't gonna do that, he only agreed to it so he didn't have to hear anything else about it. 

"Why do you guys like fighting each other?" Machi asked turning her head towards Kai. 

"It's what the Shima family does! We're protectors and fighters!" Kai answered with a huge grin. "So is the Miwa family."

"Wait- really?" Machi wasn't doing a good job at the fighting and protecting part if that were true. 

"Yeah, we're supposed to be protecting his ass." Kai pointed towards Kyoko who wasn't paying attention to their conversion. "It's our job to protect the members of the suguro family especially when they're the future chief/head priest." 

  
"Kyoko's gonna be the head priest...?" She questioned. 

"Yeah, he and Emiko are once my grandpa and Uwabami step done after graduation." Kai had explained to her, making machis eyes widen a bit and glance back at the other male on the bed. "After we graduate...? But that's so soon."

"Oh knows though, my dad might decide to take it after the deadline." Kyoko suddenly chimed in though he didn't bother to look over at the two.

Machi fell silent at that and looked back down at her pile of notes, she kinda felt a bit bad for Kyoko the deadline was so close now she honestly found herself being worried like Emiko is about how Kyoko might be after the deadline comes. 

"Oh, well we're done here if you wanna take your notes and leave, I know you don't like hanging out and having fun," Kai said to break the awkward silence, they weren't actually finished but Kai didn't want to make this weirder than they already were. 

"Sure whatever..." Kyoko got off the bed and put his things in his bookbag while machi gathered the notes that were his and gave them to him. "See you in class tomorrow."   
And just like that, Kyoko left the two alone in kai's dorm. 

"Hey kai, how close was Kyoko to his dad?" Machi asked once Kyoko had left. 

Kai thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "Uh well, you saw how much he clung to his dad when we were kids so I guess quite a bit." He answered. "Though, I'm not gonna lie Kyoko used to actually enjoy hanging out with us before this all happened." 

Machi was actually taken back by this, she honestly couldn't imagine Kyoko actually having fun, even during their summers in Kyoto when they were younger he always spent more time around his parents or grandparents then hanging out with than the rest of them. 

"Oh..." She felt worse now, Kyoko would be devastated if his dad never came home and machi didn't want that to happen she kinda made it her life goal to see Kyoko smile at least once but that definitely wouldn't happen now. 

Though she was snapped out of that worrying feeling when she heard kai's door suddenly slam shut, making the two look over at it to see Kyoko with a terrified look on his face.

"Uh, are you ok dude?" Kai asked him.

"T-there was a demon in the hallway-" Kyoko answered back breathlessly before the door started to shake like it was being slammed into making Kyoko run away from it before it was forced open by the demon he had claimed to see down the hallway, it was one of those ghoul demons that looked like a rotting dog but something was off about it, it seemed a lot angrier than they usually were and that was saying something.

the ghoul snarled at the three, getting in a position making it ready to pounce making them let out a scream.

  
Down on the second floor of the old dormitory, their screams could definitely be heard with a series of thuds, making a very annoyed Yui groan. "The hell are those boys doing?" She stepped out into the hallway. "Hey, can you two shut up!" She shouted up the stairs. 

The other three girls joined Yui out in the hallway. "They having a party up there?" Rika commented. 

"I don't know but they better be quiet I'm trying to study," Yui said with a pout on her face. 

"Shouldn't we be a little concerned...?" Emiko asked, they literally had screamed out so she was definitely worried something was wrong. 

"Oh Kai probably made them watch some scary movie or something." Anzu just shrugged it off and turned back to her dorm but then they all heard a growl. 

The four girls looked up the stairs to see another of those ghouls standing there ready to jump down on them and it soon did. 

"Oh shit!" Rika pushed Yui away to keep her from being jumped on by the demon while anzu got in front of Emiko to shield her and raised her hands up "Aum amrte hum phat, " she chanted to make them turn into her naga's to go and attack the ghoul. 

"How the hell did it get in?! Doesn't true cross have some sort of seal to keep them out?!" Emiko questioned as she watched one of the snake's bite down on the ghoul's neck and the other wrap it's self around it. 

"Yeah, that's what makes this so surprising!" Rika shouted back. 

"Ugh, why can't we have a normal life!" Yui complained as she pulled out a summoning paper from her pocket. "Leah darling please help us." 

"La!" The baby green man popped out and sent out some branches from its body to pin the ghoul to the wall, the snakes still hissing angrily at it. 

"Now, Emiko please chant something for us." 

  
"Oh right." Emiko positioned her hands to start chanting but then something knocked into her back, making her grab onto Anzu and making the two fall over. 

"Another one?!" Yui shouted in shock as rika ran over to just go and kick the damn thing away from Emiko and Anzu. "Emi, be a good little sister and get my sword." 

"Y-yeah okay." Emiko got up and off of anzu to get rika's sword for her. 

"And my K'rik please!" Anzu called out to her. 

Back upstares with the two boys and machi they had huddled up in the closest for protection while the demon slammed its body against the wooden doors of it. 

"Ok, it may be some girls dream to be locked into a closet with two guys but it's certainly not mine!" Machi had said while she clung her self against Kyoko.

"Why would it be any girl's dream?" Kai questioned. 

"Oh Kai you sweet summer child..." Kyoko muttered. 

"Yeah please never change Kai," Machi added making Kai even more confused and give them a weird look. "I'll try?"

"Anyways we can't just stay in here we gotta do something!" Kyoko said, he really didn't want to trapped in a small closest with the two of them especially not with machi holding into him for dear life. 

"Well I'd go out there and get my K'rik but a ghoul is blocking my way!" Kai wasn't happy about it either since he knew Yui would probably call them cowards later if she or any of the others had to come up here and save their asses from the demon threatening to kill them. 

"Kyoko can't you like chant something to get rid of it?" Machi asked while looking up at Kyoko.

"And have it be even angrier? Yeah, I'll pass." Kyoko answered back. "The moment it hears me say it's fatal verse it'll kill us all." 

"I'm gonna do something stupid," Kai announced before raising his foot up to kick open the door, which luckily caught the demon off guard and knocked it back a bit, enough for Kai to get out of the closet and shut the door. "I'll handle this!" He said from the other side.

"Wait, Kai!" Machi called out of him. 

Kai barely managed to get out of the way when the demon tried to pounce on him but he managed and grabbed his K'rik out from under his bed. "Ok, demon time to show who the boss around here," Kai said in a somewhat cocky tone. 

"God I hate him...!" Kyoko groaned, he hated how confident and cocky Kai could get sometimes. 

"At least he has the guts to do something..." Machi muttered under breath. 

Outside of the closet, Kai was doing his best to defend himself from the demon by hitting it with his weapon, he wasn't too skilled with his K'rik just yet but he was trying though in between his fight with the ghoul he fumbled to get a summoning paper out of his bag and call out to his familiar. "Tamaki!" He called out to summon his black flamed fox. 

"Attack!" Kai pointed in the direction of the ghoul, just pointing was probably not good enough for a normal familiar but it was for Tamaki for he launched himself at the ghoul willingly and bared its teeth in its neck. "Haha! Good job Tamaki!" 

Even Tamaki was getting the upper hand on the demon it wasn't good enough. "Kyoko I got this thing can you start chanting to finish it off?!" Kai called out to his friend. 

"Yeah sure." Kyoko positioned his hands to begin reciting the fatal verse, it definitely took a few tries of a couple of verses but Kyoko eventually found the one that would kill off the ghoul. It let out one last growl as it's body deteriorated.

Kai let out a sigh of relief as Tamaki came up to him. "Good job boy." He praised the familiar like it was a dog by petting its head which Tamaki didn't mind at all, it enjoyed the head pats. 

Machi and Kyoko stepped out of the closet. "Jeez, you'd think the girls would have heard all this," Kyoko commented. 

Meanwhile, they were also just finishing up with their pair of ghouls, Yui had gotten ahold of her guns and just used some holy bullets to kill them off. "Please tell me that was all of them..." Yui said, she really didn't want to deal with any more demons today. 

"I think so," Rika answered back. 

"Ah, Kyoko he might be hurt!" Emiko was more concerned for her bother then worrying about if there were more ghouls in the dormitory so she just ran up the steps towards kai's dorm. 

"Kyoko!" Emiko called out when she reached the doorway of the dorm. 

"Oh hey-" Kyoko was suddenly pulled into a tight hug by the older twin. "I was so worried about you!" Emiko had said to him. 

"Jeez, I'm fine..." Kyoko patted her back, kinda embarrassed by her hugging him in front of their friends. 

"Good to see you three weren't cowards this time," Yui said to them when the other three girls walked up to the dorm, making Kai grin he was glad she didn't call them cowards this time around. 

"Well I kinda was since I just hid in the closest," Machi said, she kinda felt bad she let Kyoko and Kai do all the work but what could she do? She was training to be a doctor they really don't have anything to protect themselves with. 

"Oh, that's fine." Yui shrugged. "At least these boys had the guts to protect you then." 

"Should we call our parents and tell them what happened?" Rika questioned as she leaned against the door way with anzu standing next to her. 

"Yeah, I'll call my dad, they probably won't do anything like last time though..." Yui frowned as she remembered the last time a demon tried attacking the boys and machi weeks ago and when she told Yukio he just seemed to brush her off. 

"We can say something to ours when we see him at dinner tonight," Emiko said as she finally let go of Kyoko. "Oh shit, I forgot about dinner..." He muttered. 

Yui breathed a small huff through her nose. "Yeah, that'll help..." 

"Well can't just not tell them about a demon getting on campus, what if there's more and hurt other students." Anzu finally spoke up. 

"I see your point but they're so caught up with the palad-! nevermind I'll call him now." Yui gave up on what she was about to say and just stormed out of kai's dorm to go call her dad and report the demons. 

"Well, this got weird." Kai had said.

"Totally..." Rika said after him. 

Emiko knew what yui was trying to get at but instead of getting mad she just let out a sigh and looked back towards her bother. "Let's just go, I don't think dad would appreciate us being late." 

"Yeah..." Kyoko simply replied with. 

"Rika, are you joining us?" Emiko asked their older sister on their way out of the dorm. "Nah, you guys have fun." rika said to the twins.

"Are you sure? Dad did say he wanted to talk to us about something." Emiko asked but rika just shook her head. "No, you can tell me about it when you get back." 

Emiko gave rika a quick worried look. "Alright if you say so." 

XiiX

Akemi was humming some sort of tune while also singing a song she made up about food while Ryuji took the counters of convenience store food out of the plastic bag and onto the table. "Akemi, like your songs and all but can you settle down?" He asked his daughter. 

"Okay!" Akemi answered back with while smiling, Ryuji wasn't really that bothered by her humming but he was trying to think of how he was gonna tell them what he had on his mind, rin was the one who was good at this sort of thing he knew how to carefully explain how him becoming the paladin would mean he was on call 24/7 and would probably be home a lot less. 

"We're home!" He heard Emiko call out as the two of them walked through the front door and came into the kitchen/dining room. 

"Welcome home," Ryuji said to them. "I thought you said you'd be home before me." 

"Yeah well, then ghouls decided to break into the dormitory," Emiko said so nonchalantly as she sat down at the table along with Kyoko. 

Bon's eyes widened a bit at that. "Everyone ok?" He asked. 

"Yeah, we're fine..." Kyoko answered back with. 

"So, whatcha wanna talk about?" Emiko asked their dad which made him tense up a bit, shit here we go. 

"Well, I was thinking about when we go up this weekend to return your dad's sword I talk to Yaozo and Uwabami about becoming the head priest," Ryuji explained to them. 

"Oh, so we wouldn't have to when we graduate then?" Emiko questioned. 

"Yes, but it would also mean we'd have to move up to Kyoto."

"Oh! I could see grandma and grandpa more then!" Akemi blurted out, being happy all about this. 

"What about dad?" Kyoko suddenly asked while he just played with his food with his chopsticks. 

Ryuji let out a deep sigh. "You know the deadlines coming up..." 

"Yeah, but you're just gonna give up like that?" 

Ryuji was taken back by that, he didn't think of the deadline coming up was them just giving up on rin but he could tell that's how Kyoko saw it. "You know that's not what I mean, we have nothing to go on."

"Well maybe if you guys tried hard enough..." Kyoko muttered under his breath. 

"We HAVE been trying Kyoko, why do you think I haven't been coming back home till past midnight then leaving again at 6 am? We've been trying we really have but when there's nothing to go on it's kinda hard." Ryuji argued back with.

"Okay maybe we should calm down..." Emiko tried to cut in, their family hardly ever fought but when they did it was usually Ryuji and Kyoko that would have a bit of a heated debate since as rika put it they both could be stubborn assholes and as their other dad out it, they were too much alike. 

"Then I guess you shouldn't have let dad go alone then!" Kyoko slammed his chopsticks down on the table before quickly getting up and storming out of the kitchen. 

"Kyoko!" Ryuji got up after him but instead of following his son he just let out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. "God, he gives me a headache sometimes..."

"He's just worried about him," Emiko said to him. 

Ryuji looked over at his daughter. "I know, but he's making it out like I'm the bad guy." 

"Yeah but Kyoko and dad were close, he's just having trouble understanding that it's almost over and we may never see him again." Emiko honestly felt bad for her bother and so did Ryuji, he knew Kyoko probably missed rin like hell he did too but he couldn't bring rin back. 

"Yeah, I know..." Ryuji said before letting out one last sigh. 

  



	8. Taken.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the paladin and cram school students are taken away by the same people that had taken the paladin himself, but why?

  
"Dad and Kyoko got into a fight? That honestly doesn't surprise me." Rika said on the other end of the phone call, Emiko had just decided it would be best if they stayed the night at home and just catch an early train back to true cross since Kyoko had practically shunned himself in his room after storming off during dinner. 

"Well it wasn't much of a fight, I think it's just that both of them are so on edge about dad talking about just moving away and up to Kyoto set Kyoko off and when he told dad off for 'giving up' set dad off," Emiko explained to her sister, she was pacing around her and rika's shared room that used to be the basement but after Akemi came along they just turned this into their bedroom since of them really wanted to share a bedroom with an 11-year-old girl who in rika words never shuts up unless she's asleep. They loved their little sister but there was only so much they could take.

"At least ya'll don't gotta be chiefs now," Rika said back to her. "But now everyone is gonna deal with someone as strict and stubborn as dad so." 

"Yeah, guess seeing grandma and grandpa more is nice..." Emiko was trying to look on the bright side of this sudden change that was about to happen in their lives, they could still attend true cross and the cram school but instead of coming home in Tokyo, seeing both of their dads and being a happy family they would have to go home to Kyoto, with one of their dads missing or dead and the other was probably gonna be so busy with being the head priest they wouldn't see him as much (Not like they had during this whole year anyways). It was gonna take some time to adjust. 

"Yeah and means grandmas gonna put us to work at the inn anytime we visit." Rika joked, their grandmother had always made them her little workers when they all came up for the summer. 

Suddenly a sound like a bang or crash came through from rika's end. " _What the fuck?_ " Rika cursed in English, being caught off guard by the noise. "I'll call you back I'm gonna check it out," Rika said, switching back to Japanese so Emiko could understand her.

"Oh- okay be careful more ghouls could have broken in." Emiko was a bit concerned for everyone back at the dormitory's safety since it could easily be another demon attack. 

"Careful is my middle name," Rika said before she hung up. 

"No, it's Elizabeth..." Emiko corrected her sister even if she was no longer on the phone with her, rika was half American so her middle name was more like what Emiko assumed her family from America had just called her instead of her Japanese name though but it was legally her middle name. 

  
Emiko sighed as she sat her phone down on her bed, she just wanted to go to bed cause today was just giving her one big migraine and if she was gonna get up early she needed to go to bed now. Though hearing a thud coming from upstairs concerned her. "Akemi? Was that you?" She called up as she walked over to the stairs back up to the first floor of their home, she got no response though and that made her worried. 

"Dad? Kyoko?" She called out again as she then walked up the steps and peeked out the door into the hallway it was dark so it was kinda hard to see. She stepped into the dark, being cautious of what she might be getting herself into. 

When she walked into the living room she found the source of the thud, a book being knocked off the side table next to the couch. She didn't think much of it really she just figured Kuro knocked it off. She picked it up off the floor and placed it back where it was previously. "I get stressed over the smallest things..." She said to herself. 

"Yeah, you do." She heard a female voice say behind her but before she could turn around she was hit in the back of the head with something, making her fall to the ground. 

Her mind felt fuzzy after that and she struggled to keep her eyes open but when she had her eyes open the first time it was still dark but she could hear scuffling and muffled voices like there was a fight going on. 

The next time she opened her eyes she was being carried but things were still not clear to her, the only thing she was really able to make out was the faint voice of her aunt saying "Emiko sweetie, are you ok?" Though she couldn't reply back cause she just faded back into unconscious. 

When she did wake up she could hear the sound of someone trying to slam against a door. "Rika that door is metal your not gonna break it!" Emiko heard Yui shout. 

"I can try!" Rika slammed against the door again, it didn't budge of course but she was trying her best to get them all out of here. 

Emiko lifted herself up in a sitting position as she held her head with her hand, it still hurt like a bitch from being hit. "W-where are we?" She asked. "W-who brought us here?" 

"Emiko, are you ok?" She heard Kyoko ask her, he was next to her while Akemi was clinging onto him. She felt bad that she was somehow brought into all this and this nightmare situation. "I'm fine but answer my question," Emiko replied with. 

"The Illuminati." Yui was the one to answer it and that made Emiko's heart sink. 

  
XiiX

A pillow suddenly hit a sleeping machi's face, making her jolt awake. "Your phones been going off for 20 minutes pick it up so I can sleep," Akio said to her in a very annoyed and tired tone. 

Machi yawned as she sat up in her bed and reached over to grab her phone off her nightstand, she rubbed her eyes as she looked down at the caller ID. "Why's mom calling me so late...?" She asked herself before picking up. "Yes, mama?" 

"Machi are you ok?!" Her mother sounded very panicked which made machi worry a little bit. "In my dorm, why what's wrong?" She asked her. 

"Um, you know where ms.kirigakure works right?" Noriko asked.

"I know she teaches the second-year class so in the teacher's room down there," Machi answered back with. 

"Well can you go down there and tell her your father and possibly the rest of the paladin we're taken by the Illuminati?" 

This made machi's eyes go wide, the Illuminati was no secret from them since their parents have always been praised for being the ones to take them down all those years ago and they've all heard the stories of them. But now hearing they were back scared machi a lot. 

"R-right! I'll do it right away!" After hanging up machi quickly got out of bed and got her uniform on before using the key to take her directly to the corridor that leads into the cram school and some of the offices. 

  
Shura was just now getting off, she hated the fact she had stayed so late and just wanted to go home and sleep forever but when she walked out of the cram school's teacher lounge she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw machi. "Whatcha doing here kid? It's like 2 am." She questioned.

"My dad and the rest of the team were kinda kidnapped..." Machi said, she definitely seemed nervous and scared. 

"By who...?" Shura asked a little surprised someone pulled off kidnapping all six of them. 

"The Illuminati."

Her eyes widened at that but she honestly didn't want to believe it, she was in shock by that way machi seemed genuinely worried and sacred made her believe this wasn't some sick joke. 

"Go get your little friends and meet me back here," Shura ordered and machi quickly complied and hurried off to go to the cram school dormitory. 

Shura stood there trying to think of something to do, if they had taken them she didn't know how she was gonna find them but then it dawned on her. She quickly pulled out her phone and opened an app all exorcists were forced to download that was able to track their locations, it was a semi-new thing and was only inforced after rin had gone missing himself almost a year ago. All you needed was that exorcist's phone number and you were set, luckily she practically had all of their's so all she had to do was pick and...

"There we are." She went off to gather a team of exorcists cause she knew her and a bunch of kids weren't gonna be able to take down anything from the Illuminati.

With machi, she quickly made her way to the cram school dormitory and when she knocked on the door it just opened up for her, which made her scared. She slowly watched into the dark and old building with caution. Her whole body trembled with fear as the floor creaked as she walked. "Is anyone here?!" She called out. 

She stopped when she accidentally stepped on Kai or Anzu's K'rik and it just made her concerned cause it wasn't the only weapon that was on the ground, she saw Yui's gun and rika's sword and some ripped up summoning papers, there had defiantly been a fight here. 

"Oh no..." She muttered and quickly got her phone out to call shura. "T-their not here!" Machi said in a very panicked tone. 

"What do you mean their not there?!" Shura had a bad feeling they might have gotten to the cram school students as well but she didn't want to believe it. 

"They must have taken too cause it looks a might went down here!" Machi explained. 

"Right, come back here we're gonna get a headstart on heading over there before a team of exorcist joins us." Shura knew it would be risky if for a short while it would be just her and some kid but she had a feeling that if they had taken the paladin team they might have rin as well and just in case they had done something with rin she wanted to make sure she got to him first. 

"Yes ma'am!" Machi said before she hung up. 

  
XiiX

The six of them were all practically shoved into a room together, the door closing and locking behind them. "Hey! The hell is going on here!" Shima shouted as he pounded on the door. 

They all had been caught so off guard during the kidnapping none of them were able to get to any weapons so they were left without anything to defend themselves or anything that could get them out of here, hell all of them were in their own homes so they didn't even have their heavy jackets on anymore just the clothes they had underneath them though shiemi had changed into a kimono. 

"Oh God their gonna kill us." Konekomaru was in a state of panic, along with shiemi cause after he said that she added onto it with. "Or worse the kids!"

"Calm down we'll get out of this." Yukio tried to calm them down since panicking wasn't gonna help their situation. 

  
"Oh please, you and Renzo don't have your weapons and I doubt there's a stupid scripter that could break open this door and hell I bet they have some weird thing going on with this room that will keep me and shiemi from summoning our familiars." Izumo wasn't happy about this either, they all had experienced first hand what the Illuminati could do so what they were up to now wasn't gonna be good. 

"I can't believe they even dragged the kids into this, what could they even use them for?!" Ryuji honestly didn't know what they could possibly want with their kids.

"Well, their OUR kids, they could be used for a lot of things. They could try something with the nine tails with Kai and airi, the twins are biologically related to you so they could try and get Karura back with their help, and if they wanted or tried hard enough maybe use Yui and Mami for vessels for Satan or some other demon." Yukio explained which shiemi hit his shoulder after he did. 

"Don't say that! They couldn't just use our baby girls for that!" 

"They could just being related to me makes them good enough vessels for him," Yukio argued back with. 

"Oh God if they find out about kai's familiar he's screwed..." Shima found himself actually concerned for his kid's safety which wasn't a bad thing. 

"Your right..." Izumo could actually imagine them using kai for the nine tails and or do something awful with his familiar which made her very concerned and worried. 

While everyone was busy panicking Ryuji glanced around the room they were in and he started to notice how the walls and floor were weirdly burnt and then he saw the bed in the middle of the room. He slowly walked towards it, getting a bad feeling about what he was about to see. 

"Wait, bon we don't know what that is!" Shima said went he noticed Ryuji go towards the bed that had a sheet covering something underneath it. "Yeah, it could be one of those zombies!" Koneko added. 

But it didn't stop him, he stood next to the bed before grabbing the sheet and pulling it off, throwing it onto the ground. They all fell into shock at what they saw. 

"Rin!" Shiemi called out as the rest of them joined Ryuji, standing around the bed the half-demon was laying in. 

Rin had his wrists tied to the bed, he looked so out of it, his eyes were barely open as quiet breaths left his parted lips. 

"Okumura...?" Koneko tried to get him to respond to them but they got nothing, he didn't even look at any of them. 

They all kind doubted he was even alive until Yukio actually took it upon himself to check rins pulse. "He's alive, but at the looks of it just barely." 

"Yep, we're gonna die." Shima said he believed if they could do this to the son of Satan they could easily do that to all of them. 

"What have they done to you rin...?" Shiemi moved some of rins white-hair out of his eyes, it honestly hurted her seeing rin like this.   
This time rin actually looked over at shiemi which made her jump a bit, but she was glad he was kinda responsive. 

"We're not gonna die." Yukio had said, though he wasn't for sure about that either. 

"Look at him, man! He's practically a corpse!" Shima said while gesturing towards rin. 

Looking at rin like this made Ryuji sick to his stomach, so he tried turning away but he got a tug on his sleeve which made him look back down at him, rin had managed to grab his shirt even if it was weak but he could tell rin wanted to say something but just couldn't get it out.   
It pissed him off at how they could do this to him, he just wanted to punch one of those stupid members in their dumb face. 

"We got no way out, yeah we're gonna die." Izumo had said, some part in all of them just accepted the fact they were gonna be killed but they also had the kids to think about so they hadn't fully given up. 

XiiX

"So kid, I should have asked you this before we left but what meister are you going for?" Shura had asked machi, they had gotten a head start before the other team so they were in the car alone. 

"Doctor." 

After machi answered that shura felt a wave of regret, she was gonna have to do the majority of the fighting hell now she was gonna have to try even harder to protect this kid. "Just a doctor?" 

"Mhm!" Machi didn't seem to know what was wrong with her answer and just smiled while nodding. 

Shura let out a laugh making machi confused. "Ok listen, no exorcist just goes for the doctor meister as their only meister, it's usually their secondary one they add it on later in their career so I'd highly recommend you pick up another one." 

"But, I don't have a familiar and I don't think I have a good enough memory to be an aria," Machi replied back with. "And I don't think I could use a gun or sword." 

"But you can learn to use either hell if you asked nicely I could teach you how to use a sword or you can ask the chickens little chick to teach you how to shoot a gun," Shura explained to the girl. 

"The chicken's little chick?" Machi titled her head at the last part. 

"Talking about yui, i like calling her dad a chicken to piss him off so she's his little chick." 

"Ohhh!" Machi still didn't fully understand it but she was gonna leave it at that. "How long will it take us to get there?" 

"Probably another hour." They surprisingly didn't take them to far from true cross which actually worried shura, if they did have rin how were they able to keep him this long and this close to true cross. 

  



	9. Blue hellfire.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Illuminati put their final plan in action which just might threaten the lives of everyone.

They all had calmed down from the panic session they had, now they were just sitting on the ground and leaning against the wall.   
Since it was pretty late and they knew they'd be here a while they kinda just fell asleep. 

Shiemi had originally leaned her head against Yukio's shoulder but then she must have shifted and made her head fall in his lap. 

Koneko was leaned against the wall while Izumo had her body between Shima's legs and her back pressed against his body. 

Ryuji was the only one who was semi-awake while he too was leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, ready to just doze off. 

"R...ryuji..." 

That woke him up, he looked over at the bed rin was laying in and before he got up he glanced at the others, they were still dead asleep. He got off the ground and approached the bed again. He placed his hand on the half-demons head, gently stroking his hair. "Hey..." 

Rin actually turned his head a bit and looked up at Ryuji, which made him happy cause that rin was now being more responsive than before. "Y...you....gotta leave..." Rin's voice was weak and ruff which made Ryuji even angrier that they had done this to rin. 

"No, not without you." Ryuji wasn't gonna leave rin again. 

"They'll...hurt you all and the kids...they might...get hurt..." 

Ryuji was hoping rin didn't hear them panicking about the kids being taken to but he did. "Hey." He moved his hand to rins cheek. "They'll be fine." 

"You know how many made-up songs from Akemi I've had to endure alone since you've been gone?" He wanted to distract rin from worrying about the kids and them so he kinda started talking about random shit.  
That actually got a soft laugh out of his husband, something he missed a lot. "I'm sorry..." 

"It's fine." Ryuji couldn't help but smile faintly down at rin. "I missed you..." 

"I've missed you too..." 

Ryuji wanted to lean down and kiss him but now wasn't the time, especially when the metal door suddenly opened. 

"Sorry to ruin your moment, it was cute though." A female member of the Illuminati stood there, with a couple of other members standing behind her. She was wearing some type of cloak with a hood that covered her face so he couldn't make out what she looked like.

The door opening had woken up the others up, they all stood up almost kinda ready for a fight, Ryuji almost moved over to join them but rin grabbed at his sleeve again. "No..don't leave me..." Rin choked out. 

"Sorry paladin, it's time to put the last part of the plan in motion." The female member said with a sly smirk on her face. 

"Who are you?" Shiemi was the one to ask that. 

"Who am I? Well, I won't tell you my real name just yet but you can just call me fox." She answered with. 

Izumo raised her brow. "Fox...? That's kinda weird." 

That made fox frown, probably glare at Izumo to but no one could tell. "Yeah, yeah but you all are coming with us." 

"We're not leaving Okumura!" Konekomaru spoke up. 

"Don't worry you're not going far." Fox's smirk returned again as the member behind her moved in and practically grabbed them all forcefully to make them all move and out of the room. 

"N-no...!" Rin had called out as he watched them being dragged out, struggling against his restraints. 

"You'll be fine nii-san!" Yukio had called out back to him as they were taken out of the room, the door closing behind them once again. "Don't make a promise you can't keep..." Fox has whispered to Yukio, the smugness very clear in his voice. 

"What are you gonna do to him?" He asked through gritted teeth. 

"You'll see soon enough~" 

They were dragged into a smaller room that actually wasn't too far from the room they were just in, this one had a console that had a tone of button's and dials on it and they all had some sense of relief when they saw their kids there standing with another member that seemed a lot shorter then 'fox' probably no taller then airi herself. Just like fox, she was wearing a cloak that hid her features as well. 

"Good, things went well on your part kitty," Fox said to the other female member. Fox and kitty, such odd nicknames. 

"Yeah well, guess their parents taught them to be obedient brats." Kitty had reached over to try and pat Akemi's head but she scared her and made her move away and cling onto Emiko tightly. 

"Hey don't touch her!" Ryuji narrowed his eyes at this so called-kitty after he saw her try and pat his daughter's head. 

Kitty scoffed while fox walked over the console and pressed a button on it to open up a window that could see into the room they were just in. Scientists were in there now with rin, hooking stuff up to and placing something around his neck. 

"I-is that dad...?" Kyoko asked as he turned his head to look over at Ryuji. 

"Yes..." Ryuji was afraid of what they were doing to rin, they all were. 

One of the scientists gave fox the all-clear that everything was ready to go. 

"Might wanna get out of there then, the light show might be a little to warm for you all," Fox said into a microphone on the console to them. "Alright, who wants to do the honors?" Fox asked as she turned to look at them. 

"Can I?" Kitty had asked. "No, the commander said we gotta let our guests have the fun, remember?" Fox said back to her which made kitty pout from under her hood. 

Fox glanced over at Kyoko, she could see that fear in his eyes and that made her smirk. "You." 

Kyoko's body tensed up as he was suddenly grabbed by his wrist and pulled over to stand in front of the console. 

"Kyoko!" Emiko tried to intervene but was stopped by rika who didn't want her younger sister to get hurt. "Leave him alone!" Kai shouted. 

"Shut up, will you!?" Kitty ordered angrily. 

"Press that button there." Fox pointed at one of the many buttons before placing her hands on Kyoko's shoulders firmly to keep him still. 

"I-i can't..." Kyoko muttered, he stared at his father through the window fearing he may hurt or kill him if he pressed the button. 

"Jeez, kids are so annoying..." Fox said in an annoyed tone as she moved on of her hands off his shoulder and grab his hand. "Press the button or I will make sure everyone in this room dies including the paladin..." She whispered to him in his ear making Kyoko's body shudder with fear. 

He slowly lowered his shaking hand down towards the button as everyone behind him started to yell out "Kyoko don't!" Or "no!" 

But he couldn't listen to them cause fox forced his hand down and pressed the button. "Good boy." She said to him in a dark and scary tone. "Hope you like dying to blue flames..." 

Kyoko's eyes widen, he was scared of what he had just done. 

The tubes that were hooked up to rins body started to fill up with a liquid that burned when it entered his body, making rin grit his teeth in pain. His flames started small with just his flamed horns and heart appearing but then suddenly covered his whole body and lighting up the two rooms in a bright blue. 

"Welp, kitty time to take our leave," Fox said as she let go of Kyoko and walked towards the door with kitty before quickly leaving before any of them could get out.

"Ah, hey!" Shiemi was clinging onto Yukio as the door was locked to keep them all in there, like some kind of death trap. "Yuki do something!" 

"Like what?! I can't just break open that door!" Yukio argued. 

Rin tried to fight back his demonic side as the stuff being injected into him was making it go at full force, overpowering his human half. It was probably the second most painful thing he had experienced, the first being literally burning to death after his sword was broken by Yukio all those years ago. 

In the end, his demonic side won and he finally broke free from his restraints since he now had the strength too, sitting himself up in the bed, tearing all the tubes out of him. His flames died down only leaving his horns and heart exposed for now. 

"I-is he ok...?" Koneko asked as they all stared at him through the window. 

  
Rin looked over at the window at the other end of the room, slightly startling them all cause they could see that familiar firey look in his eyes and the moment rin opened his mouth just a little bit they could those fangs that could easily rip someones arm off if he tried. 

"What have they done to you rin...?" Ryuji muttered under his breath as he watched in shock. 

XiiX

Shura and machi finally arrived but when shura just saw a run-down gas station she felt like she was being pranked or something, she let out a deep sigh before getting out of the car. "You've got to be kidding me..." She muttered. 

"Is something wrong?" Machi asked after she got out as well and walked over to shura. 

"No, don't worry about it, here why don't you take this." Shura fished into her pocket and grabbed a pocket-knife then gave it to machi so she could somewhat protect herself. 

"A-are you sure?" Machi asked, feeling a bit nervous now. 

"Yes, hopefully, you won't need to use it though," Shura said before heading over to the entrance of the old and abandoned gas station. "Just stay close ok kid?" 

"R-right!" Machi listened and walked right behind shura, she was honestly pretty scared of what might happen so sticking close to someone as strong as shura made her feel a bit better. 

They entered the dirty gas station together, shura looked at the location on her phone one last time to make sure this was actually the place and it was but how the hell was this their base?

"There must be a secret entrance somewhere, you look on one end and I'll look over here," Shura said as she gestured over the other side of the gas station for machi to look over at. 

Machi quickly obeyed since she really wanted to save her friends and started her search near the counter that had a cash register, she pressed the buttons on it to see if it did anything but it didn't. 

Shura looked at all the expired products that filled the fridges on the other end if she hadn't smelt worse things from demons the smell coming from them would definitely make her sick. 

She looked over to see a door, she assumed it went to a freezer, back-office, or storage room or it could be their entrance. 

She walked over to the metal door while machi was busy being disturbed by the magazines that were still on the rack. "Adults are gross..." She muttered. 

"Hey, kid!" Shura called out to her making her join her over by the door. 

Shura tried to open the metal door but it was locked tight. "Damn..." She muttered under her breath. 

"What now?" Machi asked her. 

"This..." Shura walked over to the old cash register, picked it up, and then threw it at the glass window on the door, shattering it into pieces. 

"That works," Machi said, in a bit of shock of what just happened. 

Shura reached her hand in and unlocked the door from the other side before opening it.   
When it was open they saw a set of stairs leading down. 

"This better now be a trap," Shura said as the two of them started walking down them into the darkness. 

XiiX

Ryuji was trying to break open the door by slamming his body against it which wasn't working, they were trying to get out as quickly as possible since now rin clawing at the window from the other side and cracking the glass, meaning he would break it at any moment. 

"Hurry up bon!" Shima shouted in a panic while he was holding back Kai who had tried to run at the door to try and break it open earlier but he had stopped him cause he knew he'd just hurt himself. 

"I'm trying!" Ryuji shouted back. 

Izumo quickly searched her pockets of the jeans she was wearing. "Come on, I thought I had- yes!" She pulled out a piece of chalk that could be used to draw out the summoning circles. "Here, summon nee he'd be able to break it down a lot quicker." She said while giving the chalk to shiemi.

"Right." Shiemi took it and started drawing out the circle on the wall and bit down on her finger hard enough to make it bleed and swiped across the circle. "Please come out nee...!"

It had worked and her familiar appeared with a "nee!"

"Hurry up!" Yukio called out as he saw how close rin was to breaking the glass.

Ryuji moved out the way to allow nee to grown branches and vines out of his body towards the door, successfully breaking it down with a loud crash. 

While the door was being broke so was the glass, they all quickly made it out but when Ryuji looked back he still saw Kyoko standing where he had been when he pushed the button, paralyzed by fear and rin was very close to pouncing on him by Ryuji grabbed his son by his wrist and quickly ran out the room with him. 

They all ran down a white hallway, though shiemi was having trouble keeping up since she was in a kimono which wasn't great cause rin wasn't far behind them, growling and snarling like an animal. 

"Come on shiemi you can run faster than that!" Izumo called out to her, carrying airi as she ran. "You all make me regret being born into this family..." Airi muttered under her breath. 

"You try running in a kimono!" Shiemi argued back with before Yukio just went up to her and quickly picked his wife up Bridal style. 

Rin had always been quick so this was no different so it was kinda hard to outrun him. 

"We're gonna die!" Kai yelled out in fear as he ran. 

"My dad's gonna kill me if I die!" Anzu shouted which got a "no, juzo's gonna kill me if you die!" Out of Shima. 

"Why is dad being scary?" Akemi asked rika who was carrying her while they ran together. "Don't worry about it, we'll fix him soon." Rika tried to reassure her younger sister.

"Listen up! Rin can't chase after all of us so we need to split up, the kids go one way and we get rin to follow us another!" Yukio said to them all, it wasn't the best plan but it was just gonna have to work. 

"But what if something happens to you guys?" Yui questioned.

"We'll be fine, we've dealt with your uncle like this before." Yukio answered with, they had dealt with rin like this before, fight him? Not really especially not like this. It was mandatory a couple of years ago they go through some type of training to learn to deal with rin if he got like this, meaning they had a plan but now they didn't have their weapons so they couldn't act that plan. 

"Guess we're just gonna have to trust you this!" Emiko said, they all listened to the plan and Izumo gave airi to Anzu before the kids turned down a different hallway and the six of them went down another, luckily rin followed them and not the kids. 

"Okay, now we need to find where they keep their weapons!" Yukio said while they kept their fast pace.

"Shima, please tell me they showed you this base when you were a spy!" Koneko said to him but Shima shrugged. "I don't think so!" 

"Damnit..." Ryuji muttered. 

"Okay, then why don't we split up, shiemi you stay with kamiki and suguro and i'll go with mwia and Shima to find some weapons." It was another semi-decent and quickly thought of plan from Yukio but they all had no choice to agree to it. 

Shiemi used nee to pin rin down with his branches for a quick minute so Yukio could safely put her down and instead of just being carried around again and tore the skirt of her kimono so she could run a lot better. 

"Be careful!" Shiemi called out while they spilt up, rin had started to burn up the branches he was being pinned with and nee started to panic since they were still connected to him but Ryuji went over and broke them up before it harmed the familiar. 

Rin was going after Izumo, ryuji and shiemi now which was good since if izumo needed to she could summon her foxes and ryuji could chant something to shield them for a second and shiemi had nee. 

Though it didn't help when they were met with a dead end. 

"Shit..." Izumo muttered. 

Ryuji had turned around see rin jumped up and was about to pounce, shiemi was able to move out of the way but now Izumo and Ryuji, he grabbed Ryuji by his neck and Izumo by the back of her head, slamming them both on the ground. 

"Izumo, suguro!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter but hope ya'll like it.


	10. Bitten.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They scramble to defend themselves from rin but it's proving to be harder then they thought.

The exwires ran aimlessly through random hallways, trying to find a way out but they all soon stopped to catch their breaths. 

"Jeez, dad's not following us right?" Rika had asked breathlessly. 

Kai looked behind him and didn't see him so he let out a sigh of relief. "Nope, we're good..." 

"Who knew the paladin could be that scary," Anzu commented. 

"You know this isn't something I really wanna be doing at like-" airi pulled her phone out of her pocket. "4 am." 

They all looked at her dumbfounded making her give them a confused look and an annoyed "what?"

"You have your phone!?" Kai asked in shock. 

"Yeah? Guess they figured a 12-year-old wouldn't so they didn't take mine." Airi answered back with when they had taken them all they had made them all hand in their phones which now they were probably lost forever but that didn't matter right now.

"Do you have service?" Yui then asked her. 

"Uh, yeah?" 

Yui snatched the phone from airi and started dialing a number. "Hey!" Is what airi said after it was taken from her. 

"Who are you calling?" Anzu asked, looking over Yui's shoulder. 

"Hikari?" Mami also asked. 

"What? No, Hikari's too far away I'm calling Ms. kirigakure." Yui answered Hikari was Mami and her older brother who was currently in a branch all the way in America with his team. 

Once she put the number in she put the phone up to her ear, praying that she picked up. 

With machi and shura, they were sneaking around as quiet as possible since after they walked down the stairs it led them into the base but when her phone started to ring she panicked and quickly answered it. "What?" She asked in a hushed tone. 

"Ms.kirigakure! We're kinda in trouble!" Yui had said to her. 

"Yeah no shit, where are you?" 

"Uh." Yui glanced around, trying to figure out the answer to that question, every hall they ran down just seemed the same to them so it was kinda hard to tell. "I'm not sure but we have an issue with uncle rin too..."

"Jeez, what that idiot do now?" She was kinda glad she mentioned rin cause that meant he was here but what yui said next made her eyes widen. "They kinda injected something into him that made his demon side go haywire." 

"You've got to be kidding me..." Shura pinched the bridge of her nose, she honestly feared something like that would happen but she hated that it actually was. "Right, I and Miwa will keep an eye out." 

"You have machi?" Yui asked, a little bit surprised. 

"Yeah, she's the one who told me that they took you all." Shura had answered. 

"Finally she's being useful..." Kyoko had muttered making Emiko slap the back of his head. "Don't be an asshole!" 

"Look, we'll start looking for you all so stay they if you can." Shura ordered them to do. 

"Yes Ms.kirigakure." yui replied with.

XiiX

"Izumo, suguro!" Shiemi cried out as she witnessed her friends be slammed to the ground. 

Rin tightened his grip around Ryuji's neck, choking him and he could only assume he was doing the same with Izumo's head, instead of just choking him to death and crushing Izumo's skull he made flames crawl down his arms that if they reached the two of them it would burn them alive. 

But then suddenly something jerked rin back, shiemi had made nee use a vine to wrap around the half-demons waist to pull him off the two of them. 

Ryuji coughed and gasped for air when his neck was finally let go and Izumo groaned in pain as she held her head in his heads while sitting up on her knees. 

Rin ripped the vine off his waist as he stood up, turning his attention to shiemi now as he raised his hand up like he was about to swipe and scratch her with those sharp nails of his.   
Shiemi flinched and closed her eyes tightly, bracing herself to be attacked. 

"M-moriyama!" Ryuji had yelled out, which was a bad idea cause he just coughed again.

"Wait..." Izumo said as she looked over at rin and shiemi. "He's hesitating." 

Rin was, his hand trembled as it was raised in the air still ready to attack but it never did, shiemi opened up her eyes and looked up at him. "Rin...?" She asked in a soft voice. She gathered the courage to lift up her hand to his cheek which made rin flinch this time but he didn't move away or attack her still, in fact, his expression was starting to soften and his hand lower but then someone shot at them, the bullet grazing rins cheek that didn't have shiemi's on it. 

That angered him again, turning his expression back to an angry one and he shoved shiemi away from him and charged at the person who shot him, it was Yukio he had gotten ahold of a gun and was the one he had shot him to protect everyone else. 

"Yuki!" Shiemi called out as he began to shoot at rin while he charged towards him, clutching his hand into a fist and punching the younger twin in the face. 

The punched knocked him back and made him stumble to the ground, then rin turned his head to shima and konekomaru which made the two of them freeze up in fear. "Come on now Okumura, we're friends right?" Shima asked while he held up his hands in defense while slowly backing up. 

Rin let out a growl as he was going to attack them before another shot rang out, it had hit rin but instead of anywhere on his body it shot the collar they had put on him that clearly had vials of whatever then injected into him, the bullet broke it and made it fall off of his neck and onto the ground.

"D-did that do it?" Koneko asked, but his answer was quickly answered by rin snapping his head towards Yukio again and letting out another animalistic growl. 

"It's still in his system but that should help him somewhat!" Yukio said, getting himself back up to his feet. 

"He was starting to calm down and you had to go and shoot at him!" Izumo glared at him. 

"Well sorry I thought he was attacking shiemi!" Yukio argued back with. 

"Doesn't matter now, we need to fix this and get outta here!" Ryuji said while he got up and helped Izumo up too since after having her head slammed on the ground she felt dizzy. 

XiiX

Shura had ended up finding the exwire's was trying to lead them back the way they came, she could have just left them with machi but she was kinda afraid they would get caught and wouldn't be able to protect themselves she was gonna take them back up and come back to help the paladin team.

Though while they were racing to the exit kyoko decided to stray away, he wanted to go and find his dad. Machi noticed this and decided to follow him, both of them going unnoticed. 

"Suguro wait," Machi whispered as she followed behind Kyoko. "You might get hurt."

"Don't care, I wanna help my dad." Kyoto simply answered with. 

Machi stayed close behind Kyoko as they quickly ran down the hall, even if she couldn't really do anything to help she wanted to make sure nothing happened to him. 

They both stopped, peeking around the corner they saw their parents trying to defend themselves from rin attacking them, trying to move out of the way when he attacked, sometimes getting hit or clawed at.  
Rin was about to get koneko but Ryuji grabbed onto his tail, pulling him down on the ground. 

"God, how much longer do we have to deal with this?!" Shima complained. 

When rin was getting up off the floor he got a glance at machi and kyoko peeking around the corner at them so instead of going back at his friends and went towards them. "S-suguro!" Machi panicked and then suddenly Kyoko grabbed her wrist as they ran away from him. 

"Ah rin!" Shiemi shouted as she noticed him run towards something else. "Come on!" They all quickly go after rin, in fear that maybe he saw the kids trying to find their way out. 

Machi and Kyoko ran for dear life, while rin chased after them but then rin had jumped up to pounce, he was gonna go for machi but when Kyoko noticed he pushed her out the way and got pounced on him instead, pinning him down on the ground. 

"Suguro!" Machi stared at them in shock and concerned, Kyoko held his hands on his dad's face trying to hold him back to keep him from and biting his neck. "Go get help!" Kyoko demanded. 

"But-"

"GO!" he yelled, she hesitated for a split second before running off to get help.

Kyoko was struggling, his dad was stronger, a lot stronger so it was only a matter of time he just bared his teeth into his neck and killed him. But instead, to replace his neck Kyoko got the dumb idea to put his arm in rin's mouth for him to bite down on instead. And he did, rin sunk his teeth into the arm, blood quickly running down it and Kyoko gasping out in pain. "Yep bad idea..." Kyoko muttered through gritted teeth. 

Rin managed to bite hard and if he did even harder he would probably tear Kyoko's arm off, but suddenly seeing his son in pain made him snap back to reality. 

Kyoko had his eyes shut tightly, trying to hold back sounds of agony of his arm being bitten but then he felt something wet drop on his face. He ignored it at first thinking it was blood but when it kept falling on his face he opened his eyes and saw it wasn't blood. 

It was tears that were falling from his dad's eyes as he stared down at Kyoko, his mouth slowly opening to release Kyoko's arm. "I-i didn't mean to i-" rin got off of Kyoko and sat back, his hand over his mouth that was filled with his son's blood which made him sick and wants to throw up. 

"Dad-" Kyoko sat up himself and tried to reach out to him but rin flinched, he was afraid of hurting him again. "I-i'm sorry Kyoko I didn't mean to hurt you..." 

Kyoko wasn't scared though, he was more so happy that his dad was back so instead of saying anything else he just hugged rin tightly, making rin's eyes widen. "But-"

"I missed you..." Kyoko muttered against his dad's shoulder, rin felt himself choke up and wrapped his arms around Kyoko, giving him a big hug back. "I missed you too kid..." 

"Kyoko!" They both heard Ryuji call out as the rest of them found the two of them, Kyoko pulled away from the hug to rins disappointment cause Kyoko always gave the best hugs he missed that but Kyoko kinda got embarrassed about hugging his dad in front of everyone. 

Rin looked back at them and gave an awkward smile since only like 5 minutes ago he was trying to kill them. "Hey." 

"Machi said you were...." Konekomaru muttered in complete shock. 

"Rin...!" Shiemi quickly ran over to him and hugged him as tight as she could. "Ah, shiemi-!" 

"Please never get yourself kidnapped again..." Rin could tell she was crying cause his shirt was getting all wet from her tears. 

"Yeah, I'll try my best..." He hugged her back. 

Shiemi happened to get a glance at Kyoko's arm, then looked at rins face and saw traces of blood. "Oh rin- you-" 

"Jeez, stop worrying about it I'm the one who put my arm there!" Kyoko said, he didn't think it was a big deal. 

Ryuji's eyes widen. "Why would you do that?!" 

"My arm or my neck, what sounds better?" 

Ryuji just sighed, yep this kid was really rin's son. "Just don't do it again..."

Shiemi helped rin up, but he kinda stumbled a bit and almost fell but Yukio helped her hold rin up. "Sorry about punching you." Rin apologized. 

"Like you haven't done it before." 

Rin frowned. "Can you say 'it's okay' like a normal person?" 

"Well, at least he doesn't possibly have a concussion!" Izumo suddenly said.   
"Sorry!" Rin apologized again, he was gonna do that a lot for a while or until any of their injuries weren't visible anymore. 

"Hey, I lost two of your brats-" shura suddenly joined them, all out of breath cause she had been looking for Kyoko and machi. "Oh, their with you..."

"When you get here?" Shima asked. 

"That brat told me you guys got kidnapped," Shura replied while pointing at machi. 

"Please don't call them brats..." Konekomaru said. 

Shura looked over at rin, she expected him to be all flamed up but he wasn't anymore just leaning against Yukio for support. "Okay good that's fixed." 

"Yes, but can I ask a question?" Rin asked. "Am I still the paladin?" 

"I mean we did get you back within the deadline they gave us so hopefully." shiemi answered him with. 

"That doesn't matter now, we should get back up to the surface before we all get captured or something." Ryuji had said. 

They all agreed and started to make their way towards the exit shura was leading them to, Ryuji had offered to carry rin since he was kinda being slow but he refused, though he did steal a kiss from him which got a "gross there are children here!" Out of Shima. 

When they got up to the surface rin almost stumbled over cause when Akemi noticed him she ran up to him and hugged him tightly. "Hey Akemi be careful," Ryuji said but rin had missed her so much that he picked up his daughter to hug her tightly. "Oh God, I missed you so much!" 

"I was so worried about you kyoko-" Kai was kinda overreacting when he saw Kyoko and his bloody arm by literally having tears in his eyes. "Jeez, I'm fine..." Kyoko said as he rolled his eyes. 

"Anzu when juzo finds out about this tell him you weren't here," Shima whispered to his niece cause he really didn't want his bother to kick his ass if he found out he put his daughter in danger. "I'm telling him everything," Anzu said she was always a little snitch. 

"You're as mean as he is," Shima said before letting out a sigh, accepting his fate at this point. 

They all waited around for a few minutes for the team of exorcists shura had gone ahead off cause the car shura had come in with machi wasn't big enough for all of them but rin didn't mind even if he did want to go home cause he was kinda too busy hugging his kids and continuously telling them how much he missed them. 

Though he had to stop when the team did arrive cause he had to be in paladin mode, which meant he had to be mature and his team and he needed their wounds taken care of. The exorcists that arrived were shocked to even see their paladin alive at all, everyone had just accepted he was dead at this point but now he was back. They were taken care of the best they could while still at the 'abandoned gas station' but after things were cleared up there they headed back to true cross. 

Back in true cross, they were taken care of at the hospital for their more major wounds, like Izumo's concussion and Kyoko's bitten arm that just needed to be wrapped up but since he had been bitten by a demon and even if that demon was rin who didn't have anything bad in his bite he needed those I.V things as apart of protocol but other than that they were fine. 

Noriko had met them all there and pretty much burst into tears when she saw konekomaru and machi cause she had been so worried about them, she also cried a little bit when she saw Izumo also since she was concerned about her best friend also. 

And they wanted to run a few tests on rin cause after finding what they injected him with something they wanted to know what it was, and they had found a shit load of different sedatives in his system still and the serum they used to make rin's demon side overpower him was something that happened to be banned by the Vatican. 

Though rin was given the bad news of one of the side effects of it was his demonic powers were now temporarily weakened until it was completely out of his system and since they used so much on him that was gonna take a while.

But after that, he could go home, something he didn't think he'd ever go back to.


	11. Welcome home.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the paladins return things finally start to calm down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is short, been struggling to find the motivation to write so who knows when the next chapter will be out.

It was the morning after everything had happened and even after practically a whole day of rest Ryuji felt like he could sleep forever but he was a dad and an exorcist, he didn't have that luxury. He looked over at rin who was still completely passed out and oblivious to everything around him. Kuro was curled up near rins head on the pillow, he had refused to leave his side after coming home last night. 

Though if he wanna gonna be awake, so was he. After sitting up Ryuji reached over to wake him up but placing his hand on his shoulder and gently shaking him which made the half-demon wake up with a groan. "You gotta get up," Ryuji said to him. 

"I don't gotta do shit..." He turned his head to bury his face in the pillow. 

"Yes you do, you've been asleep since he got home at like 6 pm last night." 

Ryuji was right after they all got home rin pretty much showered and then went right to sleep, they all did. They were extremely exhausted from everything that happened. 

"Fine, I'll wake up on one condition." Rin turned his head back towards his husband. "Kiss me." 

Ryuji couldn't help but grin a bit at that. "Yeah alright." He leaned down to do but before he could there was a quiet knock at their door. 

"I can't reach the cereal!" They both heard Akemi say from the other side of the door. 

"Right, I'll be there in a second," Ryuji answered her, they really couldn't have a moment of privacy with four kids in the house. 

"Or if you wait I can make breakfast!" Rin called out to her and she answered with an excited "okay!" And they could hear her walk away and go back downstairs. 

"You sure? You heard what the doctor said you need to take it easy." Ryuji had a point, the doctor told him his body would be weaker then he's used to so until he was fully better he had to take things slow and easy but did rin care? No. 

"Says the asshole who won't me sleep in," Rin said to him as he got out of their shared bed and stretched his arms over his head. "God it feels so good not being strapped to that damn bed..." 

"I'm not letting you get back into the habit of sleeping for 11 hours." 

Ryuji hadn't broken that bad habit of rin's, the twins did when they were born since it seemed when you just put one of them down the other would start to cry when they were babies, it made them glad they hadn't gotten rika and Akemi when they were first born cause they couldn't handle the sleepless nights again. 

"Yeah yeah now come on I'm starving and I've missed cooking like a lot." 

They both went downstairs with Kuro on rin's shoulder, still refusing to leave his side. They were greeted by Akemi sitting at the table she had been waiting there, excited to eat her dad's cooking again. "Hey, there sweet pea." Ryuji while he patted her head, he was kinda surprised how unfazed Akemi seemed by all that happened the other day but Akemi was a weird kid. 

He glanced over at rin who was already by the stove, preparing to cook but right now he was looking over at his husband with a huge grin on his face. "I missed seeing you all soft around the kids."

Ryuji gave rin a half-hearted glare. "Oh shut up, do you need any help?" He then asked. 

"No, I'm fine sit down." Rin never let Ryuji help him cook hell he barely even let the kids help sometimes, the kitchen was his domain in his words. Though if the kids had asked them to teach them how to cook he'd most likely agree to it. 

Ryuji sat down at the table with Akemi, she was humming something but neither of them was bothered by it, it was adorable. 

"Morning!" Emiko and Rika joined them in the kitchen, they probably woke up the moment they smelt rin's cooking. 

"Morning, your brother still asleep?" Ryuji asked Emiko while she sat down at the table while Rika was busy trying to sneak a piece of the food rin was cooking like she always did but rin stopped her before she could.

"Probably," Emiko answered him. 

"I'll go wake him up!" Akemi said as she quickly got up from her seat and went running up the stairs. 

"Don't scare him!" Rin called out.

"She's gonna scare the hell outta him," Rika said as she managed to sneak a small piece of the food before going over to the table. 

"Akemi don't pull me down the stairs!" They could hear Kyoko say as Akemi was tugging on his arm to practically drag him down the stairs, Kyoko had already woken up but that didn't stop his sister from dragging him out of his room. 

"Still not a morning person Kyoko?" Rin asked while Akemi was still tugging on his arm to make him walk into the kitchen.

"Never will be," Kyoko answered back, he never liked waking up early. 

"Gonna have to be if your gonna be an exorcist," Ryuji said to his son. 

"I'll die before getting up at an ungodly hour." 

"Getting up early isn't that bad," Emiko said while Kyoko sat down at the table and Akemi went over to watch her dad cook. 

"It's awful," Rika added. "Why can't I just get up at like, noon?" 

"No, you're not gonna be as bad as your dad was when he was your age," Ryuji said he wasn't gonna let any of them of getting into the bad habit of sleeping for 11 hours straight. 

They soon ate breakfast, Akemi helping rin bring over the plates of the food, it was nice to eat as a family again especially rins cooking, they all had missed it even rin missed the taste of his own cooking. It was just nice being together again. 

After breakfast, Akemi was busy telling rin all the things that happened while she was at school or stuff that happened at home while he was gone, rin kinda half-listening since he was kinda distracted. It had always been a rule whoever woke up last they'd wash the dishes and since that was Kyoko he was washing them, but rin couldn't stop looking at the bandage that was wrapped around his arm to cover up the wound from the bite he gave him. 

He felt really bad about it, he really did and it would probably take him years to forgive himself for doing it. 

"Dad?" 

Rin looked back at Akemi. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

Akemi continued to talk with rin listening more closely now to distract himself from the guilt. 

XiiX

The next morning was different, the three older kids had gone back to true cross yesterday evening and Akemi had already left for school for the day. Rin walked down the stairs while buttoning up his white dress shirt while holding his jacket in his arms so he could put it on after he finished with his shirt. "You'd think since our jackets cover up our shirts we'd be allowed to wear whatever underneath but no," Rin complained to Ryuji who was already by the front door, buttoning up his own jacket. 

"You could also just not listen like shima."

"Nah, gotta seem professional now that I'm a paladin," Rin said as he started putting on his jacket.

"Then stop complaining." Ryuji helped rin button up his jacket cause he knew rin would just get tired of buttoning them all up and leave his jacket open, which wouldn't seem professional at all. 

"Sorry, your gonna get dragged along to a boring meeting," Rin said, he had always gone to the meetings with the higher-ups at the Vatican alone but they ordered for the whole paladin team to come in this time. 

"It's fine, can't be that bad right?"

"If it was a meeting with all the branch leaders, yes it would be bad." Rin had to attend a meeting with all the branch leaders every month and he hated it, all they did was fight and none of them got along so well which made the meetings a living hell. 

"Right, anyway we should go it wouldn't be professional for the paladin to be late," Ryuji said while he finished helping rin with his jacket. 

"Yeah, yeah." 

They took the infinity key to the Vatican where they met up with the rest of the team, shiemi was really happy to see rin all dressed up in his paladin uniform when she saw him. But they all couldn't just stand around and catch up they had a meeting to attend, they all went into the room where it was being held the main three higher-ups sitting at the round table. 

The meeting was boring, but everyone was shocked to see how serious rin could be in front of the higher-ups, they mainly asked him if the Illuminati had told him any information which they hadn't or that rin didn't remember just yet, they also offered rin a couple of weeks to recover till his powers were all back in working order but he actually denied which again, shocked everyone, rin usually jumped at the change to get out of work or at least used too. 

Since rin denied it they just ordered rin wouldn't be allowed to go on any field missions till he was a 100% or if it was an emergency, as for the others they ordered at least one of them was with rin at all times which Ryuji instantly knew that task would mostly fall onto him. 

They also ordered that the remaining paladin team members that they would supervise other exorcists while they searched through the Illuminati base. 

Other than that the meeting with smoothly.

"Jeez, it kinda scares me to see Okumura all serious like that," Shima said after they all walked out of the meeting room. 

"It is weird to see you all mature rin," Shiemi added.

"Oh come on I'm like 40 I gotta mature at some point," Rin said back to them, though he could understand why it shocked is friends so much to him like that cause around them he was still pretty immature. 

"Yes well anyways we have work and I'm not gonna lie to you rin, a lot of paperwork has definitely pilled up over the year," Yukio said which definitely made rin regret agreeing to get back to work right away. 

"Your still so cruel..." Rin muttered. 

  
XiiX

"God, I hate that it's getting too hot to wear our jackets so I could cover this up..." Kyoko complained, he didn't like that idea of the bandage around his arm in full view for everyone to see.

"You could still wear your jacket," Kai answered him.

"And die of heatstroke? No way..."

"God, we're gonna have to bust out the fans soon since the AC doesn't work in the dorms..." Rika said as she leaned against the school foundation, it was during their lunch break so they were all just hanging out in the courtyard.

"I hate living in that creepy old dormitory," Emiko said. 

"Yeah I don't think I'll be able to sleep at night cause of what happened," Kai added, though that wasn't true, kai could sleep through anything so he would most definitely have no trouble sleeping there. "Anyways how's your dad doing?" 

"Fine I guess, he had a meeting at the Vatican this morning I think," Kyoto answered him. 

"Sounds scary," Anzu commented while she took a bite of her lunch. 

"Oh I'm sure it wasn't bad," Yui said. "Though, I suppose a meeting with the higher-ups could be frightening." 

"Yeah, hopefully, we never have to face those guys," Kai added. 

"But hey, the heat means summers coming and that means I can soon go home!" Anzu said, shifting the topic back onto the fact it was hot outside. 

"Cool beat takezo up for me," Kai said to her. 

"You bet your ass I will," Anzu replied. 

XiiX

"Okumura!"

A blond exorcist was sitting on one of the field offices desks talking to his other teammates before the team leader came in and called out his name.

"Yes sir?" The blond male asked.

"You and other members from the Japan branch are going home tonight." The team leader said which kinda disappointed him.

"What? Hikari's leaving?" One of his teammates complained. 

"Yes, they need all hands on deck while they deal with the Illuminati, it should only be a few weeks though so he'll be back soon."

"It's fine anyways, means I'll get to my family." Hikari said, he was still disappointed but hey, he liked his family so that would be nice to see them again. "It'll be fun, right lele?" He asked the little babygreen man that had been resting on his shoulder. "Lele!" It said to him. 


	12. Shining flower.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter of this arc, the first chapter of the next one is going up right after this!

The blond exorcist leaned over the reception desk, his hair was short and somewhat straight, his straight cut bangs covering one of his eyes, a tiny baby green man sat in his shoulderr as well. "Excuse is the paladin in his office right now?" He asked the female exorcist sitting at the desk. 

"I'm not sure, I can call him or one of his teammates and ask if he is." She answered back. "Is there any particular reason you need to see him?" 

"Nah, just wanted to stop by and say hi." He said back to her with a faint smile on his face. 

"Uh, okay..." She definitely felt a bit weirded out. "I'm afraid at the moment unless it's important or is one of his teammates your not allowed to stop by his office, Vatican's orders while he's still recovering."

"Right, sorry for wasting your time." He stood up straight, walking away from the desk and down the hallway. He was definitely going to stop by even if he wasn't allowed to. "Hey lele, wanna mess with uncle rin and dad?" He asked the little familiar who gave him a happy noise to single that it did indeed want to have fun and mess with them. 

He approached the door, he first looked around for anyone that could see him, and nope there was no one. "Jeez, the guy just got kidnapped you'd think they have some sort of security near his office." He muttered and opened the door just a crack to peek in. 

"Nii-san, can you sit normally?" Yukio asked, rin had his feet propped up on his desk while he leaned back in his seat. 

"Oh come on, this isn't some formal meeting your just reading off reports," Rin argued back. 

Yukio just let out a sigh, he didn't feel like arguing with his brother today so he just continued reading the report aloud. "So, they searched all the computers they had in the laboratory we found you in but they seemed to erased them all." While he talked the exorcist from the other side of the door let his familiar onto the ground to run into the office unnoticed since it was so small. lele climbed onto Yukio and went unnoticed until it got onto his shoulder and jumped down onto the paper he was reading the report off. "Lee!" 

"Is that nee...?" Rin questioned when he finally noticed the familiar. Yukio stared down at it, he knew whose familiar it was. "Hello, Hikari."

Hikari finally let himself be known and walked into the office. "Hello, dad, uncle rin." 

Hikari Okumura, he was Yukio and shiemi's oldest child. Though with the way he behaved some people rumored that he was actually rins kid. He was eighteen and just became a full-time exorcist only a couple of months ago after graduating though he had chosen to travel around with another team of exorcists that went around helping other branches that needed extra help or places that needed exorcists in general. 

"Oh, I forgot to mention that he and a few of his teammates were gonna be in Japan for a while didn't I?" Rin said and got a quick glare from his brother. "Yes, you did." 

"Yeah, the Vatican asked exorcists that were affiliated with the Japan branch to return so they could have extra hands with this whole Illuminati thing going on." Hikari chimed in, he wasn't that happy his traveling around was cut short but it wasn't gonna be for long he hoped. 

"Well, I'm happy to see you though I would of at least appreciated you calling first," Yukio said, letting the familiar jump back into Hikari's hand. 

"Yeah well, I wanted to surprise you." His son answered back with.

"Right, have you seen your mother yet?"

"No, but if you tell me where she is I'll go see right now and leave you two be." Hikari let lele jump back onto his shoulder as he talked.   
"She should be in the shared office but don't 'surprise' her to much you know how your mother is." Even if shiemi had gotten a lot braver over the years she could still be easily startled sometimes. 

"I won't." Hikari headed towards the door again to leave. "Bye see ya later!" He said before leaving the office.

"Bye Hikari!" Rin called out while he left. 

"Now, back to the report," Yukio said, turning his attention back to his brother who groaned a bit, he definitely didn't miss this part of the job. "Yeah, yeah..." 

Luckily, Hikari knew exactly where the shared office was since he was still in school when they were all given said office so he had stopped by there a ton of times, the door was wide open like it usually was too so he peeked his head. 

"Hello, paladin team!" He said in a sing-song tone. 

Shiemi quickly turned her head towards Hikari around with a huge smile on her face. "Hikari!" She got up from her seat go and give her son a big and tight hug. "My baby boy is home! I missed you so much!" 

Hikari laughed a little bit. "I missed you too mom." 

"Someone's happy..." Izumo muttered while the rest of the team watched shiemi and Hikari.

Shiemi finally let go of Hikari, she was just happy to see her son cause she hadn't seen him since he left with his team after his graduation. "Why are you here? I thought you were still in America!"

"I was, but the Vatican ordered anyone with the Japan branch to return so we can help out," Hikari explained to his mother. 

"Right, well I'm just glad your home! Have you seen your dad? Or your sisters?" Shiemi then asked.

"I've seen dad and uncle rin but not mami or Yui yet." 

"Well, they should be coming down for the cram school soon anyway so you can see them then!" Shiemi said, clasping her hands together. 

"Yeah well, I gotta go do a few things anyway so I'll come back when they do." Hikari turned on his heel, there was still a couple of boring exorcist stuff he needed to do which he wasn't happy about. 

"Okay! Well, I'll see you later!" Shiemi waved bye to him while he started walking down the hallway. "Wait-! Are you gonna be staying at home?!" She then called out.

"No! They're giving us those apartments they let new exorcist's stay in, I'll come over for dinner if Ya want though!" Hikari answered.

"Yes! That'd be nice!" 

She watched Hikari walk down the hallway until he turned the corner. "Now all my boys are home!" She said excitedly, first, they had finally gotten rin home safe and sound and now her son was home for a little while, things were getting better. 

XiiX

"Why does there have to be a test today?!" Kai complained as he and the other exwires walked down the hallway towards the cram school. "Like this sucks!"

"At least your test isn't a physical one..." Rika muttered. 

"The semester ends in a few weeks Kai, a lot of our classes are gonna have tests and there's also the training camp as well," Emiko said while she was walking beside Kyoko. 

"I'm not excited for that..." Kyoko said, he never was excited about the more physical tests and from they heard from the second year's the training camp was really hard. 

Kyoko hadn't been paying attention to what was in front of him so he was surprised when he suddenly bumped into someone. "Oh sorry-" kyoko looked up to see who he accidentally bumped into and saw that it was Hikari. 

"Hey lil cousin." Hikari greeted with a small grin on his face.

Kyoko gave him an unamused looked. "Oh hello." 

"What are you not excited to see me?!" Hikari asked, suddenly feeling offended kyoko wasn't more excited to see him since when kyoko was younger he was also so happy to see his older cousin. 

"No." Kyoko simply said, going to walk past Hikari and walk towards the cram school. 

"Oh you know he's happy to see you, in his own way." Emiko said, trying make an excuse for the way Kyoko acted towards him.

"Yeah, I know."

"Hikari!" Mami suddenly said very happily and loudly as she quickly went over to hug her big brother. 

"Well, I'm glad you're happy to see me!" Hikari said while patting her head, he then looked over at Yui. "You gonna hug me too?"

"I'm not much of a hugger so no, but I'm happy your home I suppose." Yui was never the one to get overly excited about things, which always made Hikari compare her to their father since they both could be a little stone-faced and cold. 

"Aw, I'm happy to see you too." 

"Anyways, we have to get class and I'm not gonna be late because of you." Yui cared about her brother and had missed him but was she gonna say that out loud? Nope. She cared about classes and grades a little bit more. 

Mami reluctantly unwrapped her arms from around Hikari, she definitely wanted to spend time with their older brother more than going to class today and knew she definitely wouldn't be able to focus now.

"See ya later Hikari!" Rika ended up calling out as she walked with the other second years to their separate class. 

"Will I see you tonight?" Mami then asked her older brother.

"Yeah, you will don't worry," Hikari answered which excited mami more.

"Come on mami we're gonna be late." Emiko said to her while her and the remaining exwire's were about to head to their class. 

"Right! Bye Hikari!" Mami waved to him while she walked with them. 

"Bye!" He called back to her, he was glad to be back though apart of him was disappointed that his traveling around with his team was cut so short for now at least, he just hoped he could get back to it sooner than later.


End file.
